Beauty Besmirched: The Humiliation of Alice Ribbons
by Marius Szabo
Summary: Alice Ribbons is a cold, sexy, sophisticated woman. She is also an internationally-wanted thief, a real professional, or so she thinks. What happens then when her last heist turns sour, forcing her to confront a little boy from the Chicago suburbs in a battle of wits? Her total humiliation! A re-telling of Home Alone 3 from Alice's perspective. Warning: sexual & suggestive content!
1. Chapter 1

Beauty Besmirched: The Humiliation of Alice Ribbons

Foreword

This story contains some explicit material of a sexual and/or suggestive nature. Just as its source material, it does not claim to be politically correct. After all, the work in question deals with the humiliation of an adult woman at the hands of a little boy. If this is your cup of tea, then proceed. Otherwise, you may need to think twice before reading. Since it is a re-telling, I have chosen to stick to the chief events of the story while deviating where possible, inserting new concepts here and there. Overall, I've tried to remain faithful to the spirit of the source. The story itself was written for pure enjoyment. So please, enjoy! Comments are very welcome. If you have any new traps or hijinks to suggest, do not hesitate to comment upon these; they may see inclusion in some later part of the story. Many thanks!

Chapter 1

The docks, long beyond midnight: the San Francisco Bay area was ominously quiet, except for the low rumble of engines and the sound of rippling water. Into this still scene entered a Ford Explorer, followed by a pitch black Bentley Continental, pulling over by the ocean-side roadway. For a moment, no motion registered from the lone vehicles. Then, nervously, a small man in wire-frame glasses stepped out of the Ford, carrying a metallic case in hand.

Seated in the back of the Bentley, watching through the tinted glass, a lean woman with short dark hair turned her piercing cold stare on the approaching form. Her name was Alice Ribbons, and she immediately recognized the man as their contact over at Axus Defense Technologies. She nibbled her lovely lower lip in anticipation, crossed and uncrossed her shapely legs impatiently.

If this transaction went off without a hitch, they'd have the stolen microchip in no time – ten million dollars made easy, perhaps too easy for an internationally-wanted thief of her standing. After that, it was off to Hong Kong to meet their client, receive payment, and finally early retirement at twenty-seven years-old: a chic Paris villa all to herself, plus the collective payoffs from all her past heists – a fortune that would make even the most spoilt of heiresses jealous. She could already imagine herself draped in Coco Chanel, sipping champagne, looking over the Seine. The very thought of it pleased her. Indeed, she long resolved to spoil herself nonstop, to live like a real duchess. After all, Alice had always had a liking for luxury, and as a beautiful woman – at once intelligent, athletic, and acutely confident of her own sex appeal – she knew she deserved it more than anyone else. Definitely more than all the disposable pawns she'd stepped on and was likely to step on in the future.

"Alice, let's go. We have work to do." The firm voice with its heavy Eastern European accent snapped her out of her reverie. She turned to the tall, gaunt man seated next to her and nodded. Petr Beaupre was the leader of the outfit – a man in his early 50s, dressed very professionally in a dark linen suit and overcoat, a wanted man with a much longer record of espionage and double-dealing than any one of them. He'd evaded the FBI for years now. With him in charge, Alice felt more relieved. Surely that meant one less idiot on the team, one less liability to worry about.

They stepped out of the car into the cold night, Beaupre walking ahead to inspect the chip, Alice staying close behind to keep watch. Their Axus contact seemed more visibly shaken now to her amusement, and Alice could tell that Unger and Jernigan had roughed him up quite a bit. A preliminary warning in case he planned to double-cross them. The two men in black leather coats – the remaining members of the team and its much needed muscle – parted aside as Beaupre came forward, extending a hand to receive the chip. Now came the moment of truth. From where she stood, Alice held her breath. The older man took out a jeweler's glass and put it to his eye before scanning the goods. His usually impassive expression gave way to a satisfied grin. A slight nod in her direction told Alice that here was the real deal.

"I have a plane to catch. Where's my money?" The Axus Contact's whiny voice grated on her nerves.

She wished they could have done away with this pawn on the spot. A pistol and silencer would do. But they too had a plane to catch, and they couldn't be bothered with disposing a body at this late hour. She simply frowned as Jernigan tossed the valise of money to the Axus Contact. What an annoyance these pawns were becoming, and how expensive! They disgusted her. To Alice, these expendables were beneath her, unworthy even of cleaning her boots.

With the transaction complete though, there was no time to lose. Alice sat herself back down in the Bentley and picked up a bright red toy car they'd purchased earlier that day. It was one of those remote control Mutator trucks, a common enough sight in toy stores, innocent and inconspicuous. Sitting beside her, Beaupre handed her the chip. Now began the next phase of the plan.

Opening the plastic shell of the toy car, Alice inserted the chip amongst the internal circuitry and re-sealed the outer covering. It was a perfect fit: their means of getting the chip through airport security undetected. Returned to its box moreover, the toy car made the ideal Trojan horse.

As the Bentley drove off, there was no doubt in Alice's mind that this mission was going to be child's play.

[…]

Flanked by her three male associates, Alice made her way through the San Francisco International Airport with smart, confident steps, her head held high, her shoulders pulled back firmly, her eyes locked intently on the way ahead. She had a look of pure seriousness on her face – the kind of forbidding expression, mixed with an air of haughtiness, which told any onlooker to back-off. Her dark-colored clothing only accentuated the effect – black turtle-neck sweater under an expensive woolen coat in dusky shades of green; navy blue slacks which clung tightly to her beautiful rear and thighs; black leather ankle boots shined to perfection. She certainly dressed in style. No extraneous gestures either; no sign of weakness that might give her away. To lose nerve at the crucial moment just wouldn't do for someone of her standing. She had a reputation to uphold even if this may well be her last job.

It came as no surprise then that Beaupre should have charged her with carrying the white Parisian bag containing the toy car and the chip. Jernigan would've cracked like a nervous wreck from the pressure, and Unger would've botched the whole operation with his innate sloppiness. It wasn't very hard for Alice to imagine Jernigan twitching and flailing about or Unger leaving the package in some public restroom. The buffoons couldn't be trusted with such a delicate task.

Finally, they arrived at the airport security checkpoint. Alice placed the Parisian bag on the conveyor belt to be screened by x-ray. With Beaupre just behind her, she stood in-line before the walk-thru metal detector. No backing out now.

Suddenly, the telltale sound of beeping filled the air. Alice froze.

Could they have set-off the alarm? Impossible! The plan was flawless. Nonetheless, needing confirmation, she turned back to Beaupre who simply wrinkled his brow. It was an order to keep her cool.

And just as expected, the alarm had nothing to do with her but rather with the rotund woman up ahead.

Alice gritted her teeth and felt her annoyance rising. Surprises, even harmless ones, generally left her in a foul mood. Worst of all, Alice couldn't stand what she deemed the stupidity of other people. As it turned out, the woman in front of her had forgotten to remove her earrings. A petty issue, but for Alice, inexcusable, a mistake deserving of her quiet though nonetheless seething ire. She scrutinized the woman's jewelry, and dismissed them as utter kitsch. Why did she even bother waiting for this nobody to finish? It was a pointless insult to herself. She tried then and there to overtake this nuisance only for the security official at the gate to chastise her. The indignity of it all! From where she was, she needed merely to stand on tip-toe to see the package at the end of the conveyor belt. It was so close it was unbearable, a real test of what little patience she had. Still, she waited.

Soon enough, it was her turn. Alice heaved a sigh of relief as the security official signaled her through. Alice had no intention of letting these pests off easy, however. Passing through the metal detector door and making her way to the end of the conveyor, she purposely pushed aside the woman in front of her with her shoulder, nearly knocking her over. She then stepped on the security official's shoe, tilting her head back and snobbishly raising her nose at the confused employee. A rush of satisfaction sent shivers up her spine. Sweet victory! It wouldn't be long now, she thought. They'd gotten through the worst of it, and security at Hong Kong was bound to be even lighter. She'd be living the high life in no time and these wage-slaves would still be stuck in their dead-end lives. She grabbed the white Parisian bag and re-grouped with Beaupre and the rest. She could almost laugh.

But, just a few steps into the airport terminal, her pace slowed to a stop. Her smile dissolved into a look of confusion. Something didn't feel right. The bag somehow felt lighter. Alice clutched at the Parisian bag with both hands. Not only was it lighter, but it also felt… softer?

Beaupre and the others were looking at her now.

Her lower lip shook. No, it couldn't be! She tore at the bag and looked inside to find a cheap romance novel, a beaten old newspaper, and a single loaf of sourdough bread. The toy car and the chip were gone! The ten million dollars had slipped out of her hands! "Oh, my God…," Alice cried in horror.

The realization that the real package had been lost quickly hit Beaupre, Unger, and Jernigan who immediately split into different directions to locate it.

Alice herself couldn't believe the situation. For a while she stood on the same spot dazed. How could this have happened? How could she have lost it? No, she reasoned with herself, she didn't lose it; she'd been compromised – sabotaged! She had never lost a package before. She was a professional after all, a cut above the rest, and therefore above committing such juvenile mistakes. Everything was clear now. The package had been stolen from her. But who could have done so? Who was the saboteur? Alice felt the world spinning about her. Eyes searching desperately, she checked the lounges for Dallas, Miami, New York, and Denver. Yet, there was no sign of the package in any of them. She had to report back.

The team regrouped at the flight concourse. Beaupre watched the monitor broadcasting all the scheduled flights for that morning, all the flashing names of cities, countries, minutes, and hours. His expression remained unyielding even as Alice communicated her findings – or lack thereof – to him.

Jernigan spoke next. "Bars, restaurants, shops, clubs. Clean."

Unger followed suit in his usual sarcastic tone. "When I went to the john, I didn't see anything in there."

Upon hearing this, Alice rolled her eyes in disgust, took a deep breath as if to steady herself, and let out a frustrated sigh. Was this man dense? Couldn't he sense the gravity of the situation? Of course not, she reminded herself. Alice hated Earl Unger with a passion, and his irritating but predictable response to the current disaster only gave her more reason to do so. The large, burly man with long dark hair done up in a pony-tail was a constant pain, always ready to spout some untimely wisecrack or complaint, always coming up with excuses to avoid difficult assignments. If in the rare instance he kept his mouth shut, he was good for grunt work. For the most part though, he was little else but dead-weight, hopelessly incompetent and lacking in imagination or ambition, an idiotic piece of macho-obsessed scum with nothing to back his boasts. More than once, she'd even caught him staring at her ass, no doubt undressing her in his head. Just thinking what he might be imagining in that dimwitted mind of his made her cringe.

Then Beaupre spoke up. "It has to be on a plane," he snapped. "We're going to Chicago."

[…]

It wasn't difficult to acquire four last minute tickets to Chicago this early in January. The Christmas holidays were over, schools and businesses resumed, and a sense of normalcy descended upon all things. Or at least that should have been the case. For Alice, there was nothing normal about her present situation. What was supposed to be an effortless job had effortlessly turned sour. And although several hours had passed since the mix-up at the airport, her annoyance had not abated one bit.

She should've been on a plane to Hong Kong, not Chicago. With the FBI on her trail, there was no worse place to be. She'd never been in such dire straits before. It made her nervous, a feeling she hadn't experienced in a long time. She shifted her curvy posterior against the first-class leather seating over and over, the friction from her movements threatening to wear right through the fabric of her pants. Still, she couldn't find a comfortable position to help put her thoughts at ease.

Beaupre sat on the seat to Alice's left but hadn't spoken to her throughout the entire flight. She threw him a surreptitious, side-long glance. Was the older man as tense as she was? If so, his expression betrayed nil. And what of Unger and Jernigan? The two dunces were out of sight on another part of the plane. Last she saw them though, they seemed less concerned over the missing chip and more irked at having to fly coach – something she'd have relished were circumstances more agreeable. As it was, however, the duo's apparent indifference simply vexed her further. She couldn't stand it.

In a flash, her thoughts turned to the saboteur. Whoever it was, Alice couldn't wait to get her hands on them. She was sure to make them pay, make them suffer dearly for all the trouble they'd caused her. She had no intentions of showing even an ounce of mercy. Let them cry. Let them beg. She'd crush them all the same. She licked her lips as she envisioned all manner of cruel scenarios. Her inner thighs grew hot. More and more, she became conscious of how tightly her slacks were chaffing into her clenched ass crack and into her sensitive bits up front. Oh, she'd tie up the saboteur, and then…, and then….

A successful landing. The plane arrived in Chicago at dusk in the dead of winter.

Alice stood up, straightened out her coat, and made her way to the very front of the exit, positioning herself at the threshold. This way she could see all the disembarking passengers, their luggage included.

Waves of people walked past her. She scrutinized each individual and the things they carried but none seemed to be bringing white Parisian plastic bags. She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Increasingly fewer passengers were left aboard the plane. What if none of these idiots had the chip? What if it was nowhere in Chicago and they'd miscalculated again? What should she do then? The French villa she'd longed for, the fashion, the jewelry, all the joys of high society seemed more distant than ever.

At that point, the crowd suddenly ceased to move. Alice was perplexed. What could possibly be holding them? She narrowed her eyes and focused them at the head of the queue. There stood an old woman wearing a gray knit cap. Apparently, she'd dropped her canvas tote bag, the contents spilling onto the ground. Initially, Alice was wont to dismiss this scene as a distraction, but in the small space of a second, something had caught her eye. It was only there for an instant, so fast that Alice hadn't time even to blink. But there it was, dangling in the old woman's grasping hands, still wrapped in its white Parisian bag – the toy car! This crone was shoving their package into her tote bag, and she was about to get away!

Alice called out to Beaupre who in turn called out to Unger and Jernigan. Their package was in sight!

She darted forward, starting with a slow jog which soon escalated to a full sprint. The heavy crowding slowed her advance, but Alice was determined to push ahead, to catch up to this saboteur. Beaupre was somewhere behind her while Unger and Jernigan were even further back. It was so utterly typical of men, she thought. They couldn't keep up with her. Besides, while these boneheads basked lazily in their alpha male status, feeding their egos until they got fat, she'd spent years training her lithe body to peak physical condition. She'd made of herself a formidable runner, gymnast, and combatant. There was no way she could be outrun by a man, yet alone a wrinkly old lady more than twice her age.

Already, she'd covered the jetway, the arrival lounge, and the baggage claim area. She could see her target just a few meters away from her, shuffling past the exit. "A piece of cake," Alice whispered under her breath, a note of triumph in her voice.

She ran towards the old woman, pushed open the exit doors and rushed out into the taxi stand. If she just stretched out her hand a little she could close the gap between herself and her prey.

Yet, this was not to be.

Without warning, a powerful force tugged at her body from behind, pulling her backward. Alice's heart nearly skipped a beat. She quickly lost her footing and fell flat on her large ass. The hard concrete smacked her firm bottom with enough strength to leave her gasping. How could this be happening to her? In desperation, she tried to scramble to her feet, but couldn't get up. Each attempt simply ended with her landing back on her shapely ass, an unrelenting swat being delivered to her reddening bum as if ordering her to stay down. It didn't occur to her until it was too late to check the source of her discomfort, for as it so happened, the skirt end of her expensive coat had gotten wedged between the exit door and its frame. She struggled to free herself, but her coat was stuck fast and wouldn't budge. In this pose, Alice watched on helplessly as her prey hailed a cab, stuffed her suitcase in the trunk, and prepared to leave with the ten million dollar chip.

Frustration welled inside of her. She couldn't control herself any longer. Sitting there stuck to a door, legs splayed wide apart, Alice began pounding her fists into the ground, looking like a lost little girl in the midst of a hissy fit. "She's leaving! There she is! Get her! Get her!" Alice snarled to an approaching Unger and Jernigan. By the time they'd gotten through the door, however, releasing Alice in the process, the cab had just taken off into the street.

Alice was furious. She got up, rubbing her sore tooshie, and spoke through her teeth. "You morons let her get away! I can't believe this. How could you let yourselves be outrun by a senior citizen?!"

Unger rolled his eyes. "Might I remind you, we weren't the only ones to get outpaced, you bimbo."

This was the last straw. Like some sleek agitated feline, Alice readied to attack. And she would have jumped Unger too, shrieking and clawing, had Jernigan not spoken up, holding up a photograph of the cab on his pocket computer. "I've got a lead on the cab," he said matter-of-factly. "Company name – Ready-cab Co. License number three-four-four-seven."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Alice Ribbons loathed Chicago, more so Chicago in late winter.

Beaupre had parked their rented van on a miserable street surrounded by empty factories, a lonely spot overlooking the taxi depot where they expected to find their next clue. The whereabouts of the missing chip were paramount to the mission. No matter how they felt about the limited amenities available to them now, they had to endure them. Still, this didn't stop Alice from screaming internally at her predicament. She felt sick to her stomach having to put up with these lamentable conditions. She hated the sewer stink wafting from outside and into the van through the open windows. She hated the cheap veggie sandwich she could hardly call dinner, how the lettuce and tomato tasted like raw grass clippings, how it had way too much mayonnaise. She hated the cold, gunky coffee she had the misfortune of drinking. She hated airports, taxis, saboteurs, and – to add to her long list – Unger's nasal voice.

"Can't we get some heat over here?" the large man groaned from the backseat.

Alice rolled her eyes. "The engine, Mr. Unger, will draw attention to us," she replied with unmistakable frost in her tone.

"Then how about we close the windows at least?"

"The windshield will steam up. Do you want to lose the target that badly?"

"But I'm cold! I don't even have socks. I thought we were going to freakin' Hong Kong, not the icy armpit of America!"

"You can suffer a brief discomfort."

"Brief discomfort? Brief discomfort?! You kidding me?" Unger repeated mockingly. "Who flew coach from San Francisco to Chicago, eating cold spaghetti all the way? Me and Jernigan! Who flew first class, eating poached salmon and caviar for lunch? You and Beaupre! It's not fair I tell you!"

"Life's not fair, Mr. Unger. There's the exit. Use it anytime you want."

Unger retreated after that, but Alice could hear him muttering curses in the back. If she hated his guts, he no doubt hated her just as much, not only for her authority but also because he could never have her or any woman like her. She was far out of his league. The muscle-bound clod could only simmer in his impotence and watch this strong, independent female from a pathetic distance. Alice understood this, and she took every opportunity to put him in his place, to wound his pride. After having the chip stolen from her, she had few other comforts.

"Hey, would you look at that," Jernigan spoke up unexpectedly, like a maladjusted clock come to life. The sluggish tech expert of the team raised himself slightly from his seat next to Unger and pointed out the window.

Alice sighed. What could he be on about now?

She'd never been enthusiastic about Burton Jernigan. The obsessive-compulsive man with a clean-shaven near anonymous face certainly knew his way around computers. But around people he simply came off as a simpleton. Like Unger, he lacked any ambition or creativity, focusing always on details rather than the bigger picture, short-term solutions rather than long-term ones. Nonetheless, she decided to humor him this once. Anyway, he could be remarkably perceptive every so often. She turned her head in the direction of Jernigan's hand, and immediately regretted her decision. A shiver ran through her.

It was a rat! A giant, mangy rat! The filthy thing scuttled across the road and vanished under the van.

"Gross!" Alice snarled.

Unger grinned. "You really don't like rats, huh?"

"I absolutely hate rats!"

"Well, you know what they say about rats," Unger continued as he leaned forward. "They can get through any opening that's big enough for their heads."

The very thought of the ugly little monsters horrified her. Rats creeping inside the van! Rats closing in on her, touching her, getting inside her clothes! So dirty, so many diseases! Unconsciously, Alice leaned her body away from the door. Her heart pounded wildly. She glanced nervously at the open window, realized that there were four open windows all around her, and began to sweat.

Then she sensed something clammy slide down her arm.

"Aaahhh!" She released a girlish, high-pitched shriek that seemed to erupt from some secret place the rational, no-nonsense thief had long kept hidden. Her body convulsed. In the throes of terror, she flailed her arms, lost her grip on her unfinished sandwich and her cup of coffee. The food stuffs dropped right on her lap. The sandwich came apart midair, pieces of bread and lettuce and tomato flopping down upon her crotch with a squelch and sticking there as if fig leaves to a naked Eve. A ridiculously large amount of sickly white mayonnaise splattered her thighs. The coffee likewise drenched her, seeped through her designer slacks and silk panties, pooling underneath her pampered ass. To the shocked men in the van, watching her display in the dark, it looked and sounded as if Alice had wet herself.

The woman twisted her body left and right seeking out the imagined rodent. Her soaked buttocks squished about in the puddle of stray decaf, spreading out the mess, splashing it down her pants legs and onto her boots. There was, however, no rat to be found – except maybe for the human-sized one laughing hysterically in the backseat. Her cheeks reddened.

Alice shot a nasty glare at Unger, eyes flashing in anger. She clenched her teeth, reached for her pistol. "Why you – !"

"Oh, come on," Unger insisted, still snickering. "It's merely a brief discomfort."

"I'll – I'll – !"

"That's enough!" Beaupre exploded. Alice and Unger instantly quieted down. The older man massaged his forehead, lines of exhaustion showing across his face. "Don't you two know how serious this is? We have lost a chip worth ten million dollars. If we do not locate it soon, our client is going to come searching for us and he is not going to be happy. These are very powerful people we are dealing with. Believe me. None of you want to get on their bad side."

Alice's blush deepened. She hadn't been berated like that since she'd traded in her cotton knickers for classy silks and satin. To top it off, her clothes were ruined! She picked the soggy vegetables off her lap, flicked them out onto the pavement in a gesture of annoyance and disgust. She then folded her arms and slumped into her seat, fuming. Her curvaceous hips pressed further into the liquid mix of coffee and mayonnaise. The cold, nauseating feel made her hair stand on ends. Without any remaining paper napkins though, she could only brace her loins against the rapidly congealing ooze gathering between the crack of her ass and her pussy. She wished the mission would just end.

And, as if in answer to her plea, a yellow taxi carrying the numbers three-four-four-seven came to a halt in front of the cab depot.

"That's the one," Beaupre declared.

Unger and Jernigan strode out of the van, making their way across to the cab. Alice exhaled in relief. Finally, those two idiots were out of earshot. She motioned to Beaupre.

"They're driving me crazy. Just look at what they've done to me. I'll never get these stains out. Can't we ditch the two morons now?" she whispered.

"Don't worry," Beaupre assured her. "We'll lose the disposables soon enough. But not until we get that toy car and chip back. Pending such time, we'll need their muscle. Be patient."

They'd planned it from the very beginning, of course. When Beaupre first approached her with the scheme to transport the stolen chip to Hong Kong, they'd easily arrived upon an agreement to split the ten million dollar prize a clean fifty-fifty. They never intended to let Unger and Jernigan in on a cut. After all, why bother sharing good money with hired thugs? Henchmen had no say in anything, could be sacrificed at any minute. But she was more than a common henchwoman, Alice believed. She was a partner. Though half his age, she never doubted that she stood on level ground with Beaupre – two masterminds, two professionals, equals. It was just too bad, she thought, that Beaupre was a man. Without that handicap, he would probably have surpassed her by sheer dint of his age and experience. To be sure, Unger and Jernigan treated Beaupre with more respect, but Alice blamed that on the dimwitted duo's piggish chauvinism. So long as Beaupre showed her the deference she knew she deserved, she was satisfied.

As Unger and Jernigan returned, Alice couldn't help but smirk. By bringing them closer to the chip, these two dolts were unwittingly digging their own graves. The irony pleased her, and for a while she could overlook the fact that she was sitting in the gooey spillage of her former dinner.

Jernigan spoke first. "The cab took the old woman to Washington Street in North Devon Park."

"House number?" Alice asked.

"Cab couldn't see it," Unger interjected before Jernigan could say anymore. "But it's a big, old Tudor house on a dead end street. Christmas tree. Lights. Wreath on the door. Driveway ain't been shoveled."

Beaupre turned to Alice. "Are you positive this old woman has the toy car?"

"Without question," she replied. "The toy car couldn't possibly be with anyone else."

[…]

When the van arrived on Washington Street, Alice imagined another trick had been played on her. Perhaps the strong smell of caffeine and stale mayo emanating from her sopping wet posterior had skewed her senses. She scanned the site, took a moment to rub her eyes then did a double take. However, nothing changed the scene before her, and she sat dumbstruck, disbelief slowly giving way to anger.

She groaned. "All these houses are old. Most of them are Tudor. They all have wreaths and Christmas trees, and all the snow's been shoveled." Just what she needed – a perfect start! She wanted to go back and strangle the cab driver, or better yet strangle Unger over this little bit of misinformation. "So, genius, how're we supposed to know which house she lives in?"

Unger shrugged. "Beats me. Can't be too many grannies hanging around here. Holidays are out."

Alice cursed her luck. The very idea that she breathed the same air as these fools grated on her nerves. She looked to Beaupre, hoping that at least he would say something reasonable.

The more experienced thief, for his part, sat in silence awhile before moving the van back in reverse. Hands on the wheel, he set the battle plan. "We'll come back when it's light," he said. "I've counted fourteen houses. We're going to have to search them all."

Unger sounded his reaction first. "We're going to work houses in broad daylight?"

"This is the suburbs, Mr. Unger," Beaupre responded calmly. "Nobody's home during the day."

That's right, Alice thought. With people going to work and school in the day, houses should be empty everywhere. They'd retrieve the chip. No witnesses, no police. It was a pain, but she felt convinced that the situation couldn't get any worse. So long as Unger and Jernigan towed the line, this detour was naught but a brief hindrance to her new jewel-encrusted life of unending indulgence. She'd get the chip soon enough, plus the satisfaction of removing this plague of idiots from the picture.

In the meantime though, she seriously needed a change of clothes.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Her communications earpiece crackled to life. The voice on the other end – Beaupre's voice – reported that he was inside the house, that there were no anomalies so far. As to reconnaissance, he tersely requested a status update.

"North of Washington Street. Clear. Moving east. Hold," Alice responded, speaking through the radio device in her glove as she jogged.

A week had nearly finished since they'd set up base in the neighborhood. Breaking into homes, one after another, they should've been closer to finding the chip by now, but Alice comprehended this to imply that they'd wasted five long days on the field without gathering any real results. There was nothing to report back to their client, nothing to brag about. It pissed her off.

So far, Alice counted twelve houses cleared of suspicion. That left two houses to search, two houses they should've broken into much earlier if not for their unbelievable streak of bad luck. The old lady, a certain Greta Hess, clearly didn't have the toy car. They found the emptied Parisian bag in her closet but that was that. In the first place, what use could a senile hag without any living relatives or grandchildren have for a remote control truck? Even for a brand new toy, none whatsoever. Therefore, she must have given it to some kid within the vicinity. At such a juncture, Alice deduced, the most logical course of action would be to hit the house with the most children: Alcotts or Pruitts, five runts or three. Alice didn't need Jernigan to do the math. Today, they'd woken early to strike the Alcott house.

To complicate things, however, Alice couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. Twice they'd had to withdraw on account of the cops blaring onto the scene; twice they'd narrowly avoided capture. No alarms had been tripped. It made no sense to attribute it to chance. If indeed some overzealous citizen was observing their movements, she needed extra precautions. For that purpose, she'd brought a baby stroller on the morning surveillance along with a doll wrapped snugly in blankets as if a real child. None would suspect a "mother" out for a walk with her "baby" of anything criminal. The prop made for an excellent disguise. Moreover, she traded in her usual ensemble for a slinky black Lycra jogging suit, combat boots, and a red nylon vest – not the kind of outfit people would associate with a burglar. By all accounts, she was prepared. Such were her thoughts as she made to cross a road, nearly getting herself run over by a speeding Ford Taurus.

The car screeched to a sudden stop. Alice felt her heart beating fast. In her mind, she cursed the driver, readied herself to give another imbecile an earful. When the windowpane lowered however, revealing an attractive auburn-haired woman in her late 30s, Alice's frown developed into a gleeful smile. She hadn't been this close to another beautiful woman in a long time. It excited her, turned on all the right switches. She immediately wished she could whisk this stranger away to a five-star hotel, unclothe her, bed her. Men never interested Alice anyway. She exclusively craved the feminine touch.

"I am so sorry. I am clearly not awake," the woman apologized. Her voice sounded like a blessing.

"That's alright," Alice replied, taking on a flirtatious tone. She leaned forward close enough to smell the other woman's perfume, rested her hand on the windowsill as if to caress it, and batted her eyelashes. From that angle, she could view the slightest bit of cleavage. Her smile widened. She already wanted to strip down to her panties. "Have a nice day."

"I'll try," the woman said cheerfully. Soon, the car was out of sight.

Alice couldn't help but feel disappointed. Here was her only chance to blow off some steam, and she'd been forced to pass it up because of the missing chip. She wasn't sure how much longer her libido could hold out. She tried to recall the last time she'd slept with anyone. It must have been over a year ago.

Truth be told, Alice (despite her many sexual conquests) was a virgin – a fact she'd neither dare speak aloud nor acknowledge. Her every relationship ended in disaster. No man had ever seen her naked, and every woman who had didn't last more than a month. It was one of those many situations she intended to rectify once the job was done. No more late nights alone in bed, rubbing herself furiously, biting the sheets, hoping against hope that nobody would hear. She couldn't keep on like that; it was too pathetic, especially for a woman her age. And she dreaded the very notion that she'd one day become some sort of chronic masturbator. She had to stave off the habit before it became irreversible.

Then without warning, her earphone crackled once more to life. "I have the toy car in my sights. It's… videotaping me?!"

Alice didn't think she heard Beaupre correctly. "Come back on that last message?"

But there was no reply. On her side of the transmission, only the sound of a struggle registered, as if furniture were being overturned. Beaupre likely needed more back-up. Who knew what kind of trouble the man could've encountered. More importantly, he'd found the toy car. That by itself had to count for something. They might just be able to wrap up operations this very morning.

She decided to race to the Alcott house.

Her stroller bounced wildly with every frantic stride. Many number of times, she'd almost lost control of the stroller, almost slid on the ice-covered ground, but she managed to preserve her balance. Things were looking up. When she reached the Alcotts' backyard, Unger and Jernigan were already present, huddled together around Beaupre's dark figure. It seemed to her that the worst was over, that she'd just missed all the action – nothing worth complaining about really. She hastily abandoned the stroller, which slammed right into the Alcotts' garage, and converged upon the three men.

"What happened?" Alice enquired out of breath.

Beaupre held the toy car in his hands. He turned to her, passing her the object of their search. It had an 8mm video camera crudely attached to it with duct tape – undoubtedly the work of their anonymous watcher. It didn't matter now though. This watcher of theirs had just failed. They'd re-acquired the toy car and with it the ten million dollar chip. Alice heaved a great sigh of relief. A sly, satisfied smile crept over her face. She pulled out the cassette from the camera then crushed it under her boot, delighting in the crunch of broken plastic. "What now?" she continued.

"Get the chip out of the car," Beaupre said. "There's a woman inside the house. I'll go back in and deal with her." At that the older man screwed a silencer onto his gun and disappeared into the Alcott home.

Alice, for her part, began to peel the duct tape off the camera. She pressed the toy car against her chest, fidgeted with the stubborn adhesives. A garden of forbidden pleasures awaited her, she mused. She could hardly wait to invite all the rich, naïve, and buxom girls of her dreams to her soon-to-be villa, to have her way with them, to dominate them indiscriminately like a queen. Retirement was going to be sweet. Money and women, she wanted it all.

It was just too bad that retirement was neither an option for the toy car nor the watcher behind it.

While Unger and Jernigan were picking their noses and while Alice busied herself over her latest directive, the toy car revived. Its rubber tires spun against Alice's shiny nylon vest, propelling the little vehicle up with a powerful jolt. Before Alice could react, the car hit her squarely in the jaw and shattered her fantasies. The impact was so strong that it pushed her backwards, reeling into the snow. She gasped for air, lay down there a few seconds to absorb the fact that the chip had eluded her yet again.

The toy car itself landed on all fours then maneuvered away from the three thieves.

Unger, disguised as an old man, ran after the toy car as it burst through a hole in the fence and entered the adjoining back alley. Jernigan jumped into his van to likewise give chase.

In the meantime, Alice pulled herself up. She produced a compact mirror from her vest pocket and examined her complexion. She almost fainted as she noticed the little parting gift the toy car had left her – a pair of dirty skid marks right on her delicate white chin! The nerve of it all! Horror transformed into fury. Deep down, she couldn't imagine a more unforgivable affront. Already, she knew the first thing she'd do upon catching that car; she'd take the chip out of its stinking carcass and toss the damned toy into a furnace! She wanted nothing more than to watch it burn for marring her perfect, pretty features.

Massaging her lower jaw, she made a dash for the neighboring backyard. They had to spread out, block all possible exits, if they didn't want to lose the chip a third time. On top of that, all hands had to be out on the field. She had no choice but to inform Beaupre of this little setback. She brought her forearm up to her lips and spoke into the communicator hidden therein. "Mr. Beaupre, we have a problem."

"I'll be with you shortly. What is it?"

She hesitated. She couldn't bring herself to admit the incident as her blunder. "The… the car got away," she said, speaking in the most general terms.

"What?!" There was no mistaking the sheer rage which erupted from the other end of her receiver. Beaupre started shouting in some incomprehensible foreign language and banging his fist. It was obvious to Alice, though, that the man was cursing. The sounds of rushing footsteps and a door being loudly shut followed. "I'll deal with you later. What's your position?"

"Third house to the alley."

"Well, don't just stand there! Move!" Beaupre's words whipped her onwards. She didn't even want to think of how he'd reprimand her come day's end.

Heavy shrubbery littered the way into the next house however, and Alice was forced to trudge through the tangle. She could feel the coarse undergrowth prodding her soft but firm ass like a hundred teasing fingers. She wriggled to get free, to get to the other side, but the vegetation resisted her. Whenever she pushed, the shrubs pushed back. After a minute, she was dead center of this organic prison, but the way only proved more unpliable than when she first entered. She gnashed her teeth in annoyance. She couldn't take much more of it. A sexy, sophisticated woman like her, she thought, shouldn't even be in this mess. None of her previous jobs, stealing diamonds in form-fitting catsuits or robbing museums of their precious artifacts, had exasperated her so. In the midst of her irritation, she kicked a particularly stubborn branch, expecting it to break in half. The branch simply swung to the side, though, and rebounded with a vengeance, whacking her pussy hard.

Instinctively, Alice grabbed her throbbing crotch with both hands. Her face contorted in shock and pain. Everything from her waist down became numb. With quivering, slightly bent knees, she backed away, spun around, and reclined her thrust out booty against the trunk of the nearest shrub.

Unbeknownst to her, fungal rot had made this particular shrub frail. The additional weight of Alice's large rump pushed it beyond its limits, and it promptly snapped, causing the high-profile thief to lurch backwards. Hands still grasping her pussy, Alice spread her shaking legs wide open in an impromptu sitting position, only she was sitting on air in a bid to keep her balance. She looked as if she were teetering on the edge of an abyss. Only by greatly straining her perfectly fit body did she manage to stay standing. It was a totally wasted effort nonetheless, for the snow dislodged from the fallen shrub shortly rained down on her without mercy. Globs of snow pelted her in the face, showered slush over her chest and shoulders. Her concentration was ruined. She tumbled over into the next backyard, falling flat on her ass on a pile of pine cones.

"Yuaarghh!" Alice gave out an angry, agonized yell. Her face further twisted into an utterly moronic expression of wordless suffering, a far cry from her normal appearance of coldly composed yet dangerously seductive aloofness. The femme fatale went cross-eyed. Spit dribbled listlessly from one side of her mouth. This time, her whole body felt like an insensate mass of trembling jelly. Forgetting the ache in her pussy, she moved her hands to clutch at her shapely ass, shaking off the pine cones that'd stuck there. The pain didn't subside, however, and she was mortified to discover that one of the cones had wedged itself securely between her butt cheeks.

With a groan, she staggered onto her feet. Alice never knew such pain existed before. Indeed, it was the first she'd ever been penetrated from the rear. The invading object poked her unwilling sphincter and stretched the naughty crinkle of her anus to maximum capacity. She tried to assume a squatting position to extract the pine cone. Her ass twitched and her thighs quaked, overcome with spasms. Clumsily, the voluptuous thief spread her butt cheeks. She reached back with dainty and unsteady fingers, groping as if blind until finally she pinched the protruding tip of the cone. It was buried in deep, but ultimately she dug out this most embarrassing of intruders.

"Guh! Shi–! Ooo… Ah!"

The feat left her panting. The world around her seemed to be spinning. She felt drained of all her energy. She leaned her body along the nearby fence and cursed the whole affair. So, this was what it was like to get fucked rough in the backside! She was just grateful nobody had seen her, least of all her three cohorts; she wouldn't have been able to live it down otherwise. She rubbed a gloved hand over her bottom. Luckily, though her skin-tight pants were now giving her the wedgie of a lifetime, the spandex was fully intact. Alice swore that she'd payback their invisible watcher in kind. Whoever it was, she'd make them wish they were never born.

Sadly, her situation didn't afford her much time to think up of how, for then and there, a familiar whirring buzzed into her ear. Alice's eyes widened.

"Oh no!"

Into the same backyard, the toy car entered. The timing couldn't be worse. Paying the woman no attention, it zipped through the frozen ground, and – from its trajectory – Alice surmised that it meant to escape into the adjacent back alley yet again. Like hell! She refused to let this game of cat and mouse continue. Although her every muscle protested, although her vision blurred and her legs threatened to trip over themselves, she charged across the yard.

This'll soon be over, she thought. The toy car exited through the hedge boundary. Putting all her strength into the leap, Alice vaulted the same hedge. "I got it!" she cried triumphantly.

Unfortunately, the woman of beauty and brains didn't land in the back alley according to plan. Rather, as she sailed mid-air above the hedge, she came face-to-face with Petr Beaupre who happened to make a similar jump, except from the opposite direction. The car had tricked them into running for the same spot! But it was too late. Mouths agape, the two villains collided straight into each other. The momentum knocked them both back, their bodies sprawling helplessly on the cold earth. The crash had Alice seeing stars. It would take a few minutes before she regained full control of her senses, but by then she knew she was too exhausted. Beaupre likewise shared the same sentiments.

The older man contacted Unger and Jernigan with his communicator. They'd been battered and bruised on their side as well. Indeed, the chase was over. Beaupre needed only to confirm this. "We're out of time. Give it up."

[…]

Nightfall arrived without solace. Everything that could go wrong had gone terribly wrong.

The four crooks sat in the living room of their rented ranch house, surrounded by all their gadgets, licking their wounds and eating Chinese take-out. Save for the occasional moan or cough, no one said a word. The memory of their shared failure lingered too vividly, and frankly, none of them wanted to address the ugly elephant in the room, least of all Alice who still winced from the literal pain in her ass.

The lady thief put an ice pack to her forehead. She wished she could simply sit on it, but she promised herself she wouldn't give Unger the satisfaction of seeing her in such a humiliating pose. She preferred to keep the details of that morning to herself. Besides, the idiot would only crack some senseless joke at her expense. Come what may, she felt convinced that these testosterone-addled blockheads had dragged her down, had cost her the chip. That wasn't the only thing she'd been convinced of, however. The classy cat burglar may have had her pride wounded and the battle lost, but the war was still to be waged and she had one ace up her sleeve – an interesting bit of information she gleaned from putting two and two together. She turned the idea over in her mind like a kitten clawing a ball of string. If her theory proved true, then she could redeem herself no sweat.

"I can't tell you how much I appreciate you hitting me with a van," Unger grumbled at Jernigan, breaking the extended silence. Black and blue splotches covered the large, muscular man. Moreover, he'd chipped a tooth from the aforementioned accident.

Jernigan looked at Unger without sympathy and stuffed a dumpling into his mouth. Compared to the rest of them, he retreated from the chase relatively unscathed. "Never let your emotions get the best of you. You weren't paying attention. You should have been more vigilant."

"And you should have taken driver's ed."

Alice struck her chopsticks on the table. She was fed up with all these childish squabbles. The woman decided it was time to lay her cards on the table. "It's a kid. It has to be a kid."

"Speak for yourself! I'm going to have bad knees when I grow old and I'll have Burton Jernigan to thank!"

Alice ignored Unger's tirade. "The crude construction of the car and camera is a dead giveaway."

"I'm listening," Beaupre finally spoke.

"So, the cops come twice. They don't believe the kid. He takes matters into his own hands. It can't be anything else." Eureka! Alice couldn't help but grin smugly at her own brilliance. It was just so simple! Why didn't they see it before?! Their watcher was nothing but a stupid kid crying wolf! It'd be no problem at all removing him from the picture and retaking the chip. They only needed to know where he lived, and she had a very good idea of that too.

"The argument is very sound," Beaupre replied, nodding his head in assent.

"If that's the case, I say take no chances," Unger rudely interjected, snatching Alice's ice pack from her hand and smothering it across his hairy knees to her disgust. "Tomorrow whack every kid on the block! Burn 'em all! Then look for that damned car."

Alice sighed at the absurdity. Truly, she believed herself to be working with incompetents.

Beaupre attempted to restore order. "One last house remains…." His voice trailed off, though, as his cellphone rang. His normally indifferent countenance showed cracks of apprehension. The older man answered the call, and the entire room suddenly seemed suspended in a vacuum.

Alice watched him from where she sat, feeling goose pimples rising on the back of her neck. Only one other person had Beaupre's number. Immediately, she understood what the caller wanted.

As soon as the conversation ended, Beaupre made known the bad news: their employer issued them only twenty-four hours to retrieve the chip. They had to be on a plane for Hong Kong by tomorrow afternoon. "As I was saying, there is a house within the 200-yard operating radius of the toy car. It's also on the sight lines to all the houses I've been in." The older man turned to the map of Washington Street and stuck a pin on one of the squares. "This is our target. Alice, whose house is it?"

The woman answered at the ready. "It belongs to the Pruitt family."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Eight-year old Alex Pruitt sat at the dinner table with his mom, his brother, and his sister. Nothing out of the ordinary, except that he was keenly aware of a band of burglars loose in the area and not a soul believed him. His siblings had taken to bullying the boy over his so-called "false alarms." The police similarly accused him of crying wolf, while the Air Force thought he was joking when he reported finding a strange microchip in his toy car with their insignia on it. Not even his own mother took him seriously. To them all, he was just another dumb kid.

The danger was all too real, however. He'd been watching those burglars long enough to gather that there were four of them. First was a middle-aged man with a haircut like that of Moe's from the Three Stooges; he was always clad in black and seemed to be the leader of the gang. Then, there was this super beefy guy who'd been wearing a super unconvincing old man disguise; he partnered with this skinny guy who drove his van very badly. And lastly, there was a big butt jogger lady who constantly wore the tightest pants; she looked gorgeous but Alex wasn't fooled – she was bad news. The four hadn't stolen anything from the houses they broke into though. They were after something bigger. The chase earlier that morning convinced the boy that there was more to his toy car than met the eye, and that was when he discovered the Axus Defense Technologies chip.

Those crooks were bound to confront him at some point. It was inevitable. He just wished he had more time to spend with his family in case things didn't go so well. An odd phone call that night would deny him his wish. Alex's mother answered and inadvertently gave the bad guys vital information about him, about the toy car and the chip.

"Yes, you know, he has one of those remote control cars," she said. The caller on the other side claimed to be a certain Mrs Clovis, but Alex could only guess that it belonged to the jogger lady. "He got it from that old woman across the street."

The boy leapt from his chair and made for the phone, pressing the hook to disconnect the call.

"Alex, what is the matter with you!? You don't just disconnect one of my calls," his mother yelled.

"Don't talk to her, please!" he asserted.

"Why not?"

"She's not Mrs Clovis. It was lies. All lies. She's dangerous!"

"What do you mean it wasn't her?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his siblings glaring at him, no doubt judging him or preparing to mock him again. There was no way he could explain any further without making a laughingstock out of himself. Instead, he opened a counter drawer and brought out a phone directory. "Here," he replied. "Call her back. I think you'll be surprised." He then stormed out of the kitchen and went to sit on the stairs. Sadly, he could hear his mother shoving the directory back into the drawer. It was hopelessly clear that she'd punch caller ID to get back on-line with the imposter.

Shaking his head, he understood that it was too late. The siege was coming.

Back in his bedroom, Alex lay in bed, gently stroking his pet rat Doris. He had few other friends he could confide in, let alone friends who believed him. It was clear to the boy that the bad guys would most likely come for him tomorrow once everyone else had gone off to school or work. Much like the past few days, staying home with the chicken pox, he'd be all alone to face them. He couldn't afford to just hide somewhere, hoping for them to go away. He had to fight, even if the odds were against him.

He smiled to himself. He wasn't going to be afraid; he wasn't going to cry. Though they'd been such jerks to him, he loved his family dearly; he swore to protect the peaceful suburban life they shared.

True, the burglars were grown-ups; they were probably seasoned criminals as well. But this was his neighborhood and his house. If he prepared, he'd no doubt have the advantage. It wouldn't matter how old or how big the invaders. He'd beat them, and the house itself would serve as his fortress and his greatest weapon.

The boy decided then and there to wait until everyone else had gone to bed before enacting his plans.

[…]

Due to the renovations to the house that'd been going on for the past few weeks, Alex had a lot of resources to work with, a lot of materials from which to build traps for the coming battle. He opted to begin with the south side of the house and move up from there.

A cold wind blew all evening. The boy quietly snuck down to the basement. He grabbed a reel of fishing line from a tackle box, a bucket of flooring adhesive, and scavenged two poinsettia plants in ceramic Santa pots, carrying these objects over to the dumb waiter. He then ascended to the attic of the house.

The attic had two strategically placed windows overlooking the back gate which lead to the pool area. He placed one poinsettia Santa pot on each windowsill and tied a separate length of fishing line around each of them. As to where to tie the other ends, he knew just the right place, and promptly flung down the reels onto the path below.

He once again squeezed into the dumbwaiter. Now, he made for the ground floor of the house. He stepped out into the backyard with the flooring adhesive, walking to where the unused ends of the fishing lines had dropped – the southern entrance.

Past the pool area, the southern entrance to the backyard could only be reached by a semi-hidden path lined with an impassable boundary of conifers and a high concrete wall. The ground hadn't been cemented over yet, so the soil made for very uneven walking. Furthermore, it had only one gate at the far end of the trail overlooking the back alley. By all means, the claustrophobic passage looked like the perfect place to stash a few surprises. At the very least, he could slow down the progress of whoever was dumb enough to enter from here. So, with that in mind, Alex locked the lone gate and hung the open bucket of flooring adhesive on the door knob. When that was done, he took hold of the fishing line he'd dropped down earlier and constructed an improvised tripwire set-up by passing each line through chinks in the wall and tautly tying the ends to the trunk of two conifers. If anyone set these babies off, they'd certainly cause the poinsettias overhead to come crashing down. Wham!

Satisfied with this invention, the boy returned to the basement. The night was going to be a long one, and the following day even longer. There were more preparations to be made, many more different traps to build. He'd have to let his imagination run wild to keep his foes from second-guessing him.

[…]

Alice Ribbons climbed out of the tub, feeling refreshed. That was exactly what she needed. The warm bubble bath initially stung, making the woman gasp and her unhappy ass cheeks clench; in the long run though, it soothed her sore bottom enough to make her forget the day's events. She dried herself with a towel, stepped into her room, and sighed with relief. The nightmare was over, she thought. The obstacle between herself and her new life turned out to be none other than some innocuous little brat. She wasn't afraid; she wasn't even angry; she was too sure of the outcome for that. All they needed to do was break into the Pruitt house, finish off the twerp, and get the chip. He'd gotten lucky, but now that they knew what they were up against, he didn't stand a chance.

A full-length mirror stood in one corner of the room. Dropping her towel as she approached it, the classy cat burglar stopped just a few feet away to admire her reflection. Her own gaze was met by the icy blue eyes of her double. The beautiful brunette smiled. She felt immense pride at seeing this capable, modern woman before her. Not a hair was out of place. She simply smacked of elegance and power – a true goddess. And how was a snot-nosed kid, a little swine who enjoyed nothing better than to roll in the mud, to compete with a goddess? Alice cupped her medium-sized breasts then moved her hands down to caress her feminine abs. She had a pleasingly flat stomach and well-defined curves, the product of long years spent eating the right foods and doing the right exercises. The woman turned around. Her ass came into full view. She exhaled in relief once more, for the twin cheeks hadn't sustained any outwardly visible damage from her run-in with the pine cones. The redness had disappeared. Likewise, the slight ache in her sphincter little bothered her now. By all means, her ass was as big and round and shapely as ever; so much so that it'd give Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian a run for their money.

Basking in the light of her own image, she rubbed her body with fragrant oils. She then proceeded to fetch a pair of undies from her luggage case, slipping the lacy jet black panties up her long, toned legs until they rested snugly around her hips. They barely covered her ass, and they had cost her a small fortune. Alice insisted however. She wasn't going to go for anything less than Victoria's Secret. On top of this, she wore a purple silken bath robe which terminated mid-thigh.

Preparations for the siege had progressed smoothly. Weapons, gadgets, outfits – all were complete. Earlier that night, she'd laid out a white ski-suit and fed all manner of electronic cables into it, reworking the clothing into both camouflage gear and communications outlet. She'd also constructed a homemade silencer for her pistol out of dissembled curling irons.

She didn't yet want to sleep though.

She eyed a file lying atop her dresser and took hold of it. She leafed through the stack of print-outs, through pages of data, until she stopped at an enlarged photograph of Alex Pruitt. She smirked. The boy in the photo had an impertinent expression, perhaps more so than most other children. It annoyed her, made her want to slap it off his face. Alice turned to the next photograph, recognizing the red-haired woman as the same woman she'd greeted that morning, the same woman who'd reminded her of how badly she lusted for another female's touch. By coincidence, she turned out also to be the kid's mother, Karen Pruitt. It greatly amused Alice to imagine how this woman would react upon seeing her son when they were through with him. In the thief's fantasies, the imagined devastation on such a pretty face proved much too delicious. She wished she could watch it in real-time.

Her wicked thoughts, though, were interrupted when Earl Unger barged into her room. With a nasty grin, he threw a large, unopened package in her direction. It fell on Alice's lap. She looked up at the large man, scowling.

"Have you no respect for privacy, Mr Unger?" she snapped.

"Mr Beaupre says you might need a pair of those," Unger wheezed, a stupid chuckle caught deep in his throat. "There won't be any bathroom breaks where we're going, princess."

"Excuse me?"

"No bathroom breaks, no going off to the little girl's room. You're not exactly one of the guys. No one expects you to hold it in."

"What are you talking abou – ?!" Alice couldn't finish her sentence. No sooner had she brought the package up close to her face did her eyes widen. Her cheeks flushed bright crimson and her lower jaw fell. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. It was a package of XL-sized disposable adult diapers!

Unger burst into guffaws of laughter.

"How dare you!" Alice cried, flinging the package across the room.

"It wasn't my idea, I swear! Besides, we're all very concerned about you. Who knows? You might even have a little accident. I know it's probably just a little discomfort for someone like you. But, don't you want to be prepared?"

"Get out!"

Unger had gone off into the corridor, but she could still hear the faint echoes of his laughter. It was another joke, utterly devoid of humor. And yet, all of a sudden, Alice felt sick. She didn't need diapers! She was, after all, a strong, independent woman in full control of the situation. She was convinced of that. Moreover, she was convinced that tomorrow would only reinforce everything she'd ever known about herself. The voluptuous thief took hold of the Pruitt files again. She pulled out a lighter from the drawer and set the photographs aflame over a cigarette dish, watching as every member of the Pruitt household burned, their happy countenances turning into black indistinguishable remnants, curled upon themselves. She then shut the lights and jumped into bed, impatient for the break of dawn. She'd make them all pay, starting with that silly little brat!


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Come sunrise, the four thieves got into Jernigan's Nissan Pathfinder SUV and drove towards a corner at the far edge of Washington Street. Jernigan took the wheel while Beaupre rode shotgun. Alice and Unger both sat at the back, a large mixed-breed dog between them. The mutt itself had been stolen earlier as an improvised surveillance prop. Because the Pruitt kid had most likely caught on to her "athletic mother" act after yesterday's fiasco, Alice's continued use of the baby stroller was out of the question. Today, charged with preliminary reconnaissance, the lady thief had to play the part of anonymous dog-walker – another excuse to be roaming the neighborhood without raising suspicion. For Alice, however, it was another needless vexation. Seated beside her, the scruffy animal towered a whole head above the notorious woman. Without any regard for her reputation or her personal space though, it pressed its damp nose against the smooth skin of her cheek and licked her indiscriminately. Its breath stunk. Yet, the more she shoved it away, the more vigorous became the pooch's attempts to befriend her. She rolled her eyes, wrinkled her nose, snorted in unconcealed disgust.

When the Pathfinder reached its destination, Alice put on her sunglasses and got down. The dog likewise leapt onto the pavement and hung out its tongue at its new mistress, wondering where she'd take it next. They were seven houses and ten minutes away from the Pruitts' home. Grey skies hovered overhead. Snow fell with increasing intensity. Weather reports mentioned a freak blizzard on the approach. Indeed, there was no better time to commit a crime.

The street was practically emptied of people. Most folks remained indoors, either freshening up or setting breakfast. They wouldn't be on their way to work or school until a bit later. It was too bad, Alice mused; these mediocre suburban twits were missing out on a rare sight. It was the first time since arriving in the neighborhood that Alice decided to dress like the incredibly swanky, incredibly fashionable diva she long sought to project of herself. The woman wore an elegant mink overcoat that descended down to her knees, displaying only her black, single buckle-strap platform boots and her dark leather gloves. She rounded off the outfit with a fox fur hat in the same shade of grey as her coat. To say the least, she looked completely out of place in the quiet locality. And as if a runway model strutting down the catwalk, the lady thief advanced with utmost grace and composure. Soon, the Pruitt household loomed before her.

"Remember your mission objectives, Alice," Beaupre broke in through her earpiece.

"Certainly. Scout the area. Apply diplomacy where possible. Retreat. These are very basic instructions, Mr Beaupre."

"Just remember, don't get reckless. Do I make myself clear?"

She didn't answer. After all, she didn't need the older man to remind her, didn't need him breathing down her neck or holding her hand, she thought. She could handle herself just fine. Besides, she was all on her own now. No Unger, no Jernigan – none of those unruly boys to slow her performance. She seriously considered bending the rules a tad more. If she wanted to, they couldn't stop her from undertaking a preemptive strike solo anyway. The brat wouldn't know what hit him. He might even drop his pants and wet himself, she pondered with a stroke of amusement.

[…]

It was just as expected. The burglars began their offensive bright and early. Alex Pruitt watched from his bedroom window as Alice drew close to the front porch. The big butt lady was walking a large dog on a leash, looking as if this were the first time she ever held a leash and as if she hated every moment of it. For his part, the boy recognized the mixed-breed as belonging to the Barnet family from across the street, very likely kidnapped while the Barnets were on vacation in Europe. The sight of the mismatched pair gave him an interesting idea.

He rummaged through the tool box he'd borrowed the previous night from his brother, carefully taking out a silver dog whistle from amongst the pile of pranking paraphernalia. He parted the curtains ever so slightly, ready to test his weapon.

With moderate strength, the boy blew on the dog whistle. It emitted a sound beyond human hearing. Alex couldn't sense anything; same went for the well-dressed woman out on the yard. The dog, however, could hear it alright. The canine's ears perked up. Instantaneously, it lunged towards the direction of the house. The sudden action caught the lady thief off guard. Alex beamed as he observed her stumble forward from being pulled by the hefty mixed-breed. Teeter-tottering on a wobbly leg while flailing her other limbs in the air, she was forced to hop on one foot to catch up with the dog and avoid losing her equilibrium. The sound of her girlish squeals made it all the way up to his bedroom on the second floor.

His experiment worked seamlessly. Immediately, he saw through Alice's façade of poise and confidence – she wasn't really in control of anything!

"First, let's free the hostages," Alex whispered mischievously to his pet rat.

At this, the boy ran downstairs to the foyer and silenced the doorbell by slitting the wires. It was time to put his tool to even better use.

[…]

Alice cursed the mixed-breed. She couldn't fathom what was up with the dog. One minute it was on its best behavior, the next it was pulling some random, crazy stunt. The woman had almost fallen over face-first because the mutt couldn't resist the urge to chase whatever it had just spotted. Whether it was some raccoon or maybe the dog's own shadow, she didn't care. Thankfully, she thought, she was still in command. She held the leash, she walked the mutt, and not the other way around. In truth, the lady thief had never liked dogs. To her, they were just like men: filthy, careless, dumb animals with disgusting habits that couldn't be disciplined out of them; they were utterly beneath her, utterly contemptible. Nevertheless, the woman chose to overlook what had just happened. She needed to focus.

She yanked hard on the leash, almost choking the dog, as she neared the porch. The animal yelped feebly, but the pitiful call fell on deaf ears. Alice pressed a button on the hinge of her sunglasses then spoke into her wrist communicator. "I've switched on the fiber optics," she reported to the three waiting men.

"Good," Beaupre replied. "Ring the bell. The father is abroad. That makes the mother head of the household. Speak to her politely. Explain the mix-up with the toy car and request for its return."

"I still do not see why a preemptive strike is off limits."

"Alice, follow your directives. If the mother is reluctant, offer her cash compensation. Apply diplomacy. Exhaust all possibilities. She won't believe the child. I want a clean end to this operation."

The older man was getting soft. Alice didn't want things to end peacefully. That'd mean letting the boy off minus any repercussions. She still hadn't forgiven the brat for the incident with the pine cones and, in all honesty, she wanted to pay him back somehow. Nothing would be more satisfying for her. Regardless, she knew that she couldn't simply proceed with a lone take-down operation in a house full of people – that would be insane. She ended up ringing the doorbell as Beaupre instructed, hoping that nobody would be there to answer, except maybe for that oblivious little eight-year old.

To her secret joy, the first ring solicited no answer. The same result followed from the second. Perhaps the other Pruitts had gone off to work and school ahead of schedule. Either that or they'd gone off for a family jog, leaving the boy at home with the chicken pox. She needed to confirm it. She spoke into her communicator again. "Are we certain the target has not left?"

"Negative. We would have seen that," Jernigan responded robotically.

Alice tried to peer in through the curtained windows, but could only find an empty hallway. The woman became gradually convinced that the other Pruitts had left, that her standing there on the porch for so long was making her look foolish. She stomped her boot on the floorboards. "I repeat. There is no movement in sight. Permission to enter."

"You do not have authorization to – !" The lady thief disabled her earpiece, cutting Jernigan off mid-sentence.

Frankly, she was fed up with these cowards. She detested what she perceived to be the indecision of impotent men – an indecision that may well lose them the ten million dollar chip. She opted to carry out a preemptive strike. Her cohorts could sit back, relax, and watch all they liked; her wrist communicator and the fiber optics in her sunglasses would be running the entire time. She craved an audience to this flawless victory. Moreover, she wanted to show off her talents as a superior thief, ruthless and surgical and devoid of any compassion whatsoever. The men in the SUV had privileged seating, and she resolved to give them a lot of eye candy. So without further ado, the woman shed her mink overcoat. Underneath the expensive furs, Alice revealed a black tactical leather catsuit that zipped in the front. The outfit matched perfectly with her boots, her gloves, and the utility belt at her narrow waist. Its form followed the contours of her slender legs without fail, captured the fullness of her dangerously alluring ass. She smiled arrogantly. There was a lock that needed picking.

[…]

The boy hid behind the living room curtain. The lady thief's silhouette flashed menacingly across the window then withdrew. Seeing that the coast was clear, Alex put the silver whistle to his lips and blew. The sound of the dog's footsteps reached him as it padded across the porch to where the living room window hung. Alex swiftly dashed into the dining room where he blew the whistle again. As predicted, the mixed-breed crept up to the source of the disturbance, its leash looping once around its mistress's legs. Things were going according to plan. He repeated the process, noting with glee that his first victim didn't notice she was already trapped. The leash had looped around her legs twice, a sign of her inevitable defeat.

Alex hurried out the back door. Upon his arrival at the side of the front porch, an indecent image greeted him as he peeked on the burglar. Like some kind of flasher or exhibitionist, the woman had removed her fur coat to show she was wearing a super tight spy costume underneath, the kind the kid had ever only seen in movies or comics. The whole outfit seemed as though it were painted on her skin. Even worse, from this particular angle, her cheeks jutted out visibly, calling attention to every facet of the big butt lady's posterior. The boy rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue.

He needn't delay more, he thought. Then and there, Alex blew on the silver whistle with all his might.

[…]

 _Woof! Woof! Woof!_

Wheeling around, panting excitedly, the dog barked several times in loud, rapid succession. Alice felt her body grow stiff. The small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. That noise must have been strong enough to rouse the whole block!

She reflexively raised her fist to quiet the tattletale mutt, but before she knew it, the mixed-breed had charged headlong across the front porch. The leash immediately tightened around her ankles, forcing her beautiful legs together. The lady thief was swept off her feet. In an instant, Alice collapsed squarely upon her curvaceous ass with a massive and breath-taking thud. She let out a prissy, cowardly cry – the kind little sissy girls make when calling out for their mommies. Memories of the suffering she'd just endured the day prior came flooding back to her. She wanted to get up, to run as far away from the house as humanly possible. The galloping dog left her no opportunity, though, even to massage her big, smarting bum. It hauled her along as if she weighed less than a rag doll.

Normally, being a control freak, Alice would've put her foot down the moment anything at all didn't go as she desired. Stuck in her humiliating pose however, legs hopelessly immobile, ass kissing the ground, she could only watch the nightmare play out in front of her. The entwined figures streaked past the row of wooden benches which decorated the front porch, nearing imminent collision with a thicket of low-lying yew hedges and dwarf junipers. Alice's pulse quickened. From her perspective, the foliage up ahead grew larger and larger. She shut her eyes. Perhaps, she was still asleep at the ranch house. This simply couldn't be happening to her, she reasoned. Indeed, everything seemed so unreal – that is, until the leaves and branches finally made contact, knocking off her fur hat and fiber optics, whipping her across the face, and pulling at her hair. Various pebbles and hardened clumps of soil crackled under her precious tush. Fallen twigs snapped. Behind the helpless woman trailed a path of upturned earth and snow, marking the entire length of her embarrassing doggy ride.

Overall, the experience felt as though she were having her bare buttocks wiped with sandpaper while being simultaneously punished everywhere else by an insatiable throng of riding crops. She couldn't help but gain a growing awareness that the friction was beginning to scorch her ass. The catsuit itself proved a terrible error in judgment. The lightweight material offered her zero protection from this latest debacle.

"St-stooop! No! Noooo! Please! Ahhhhh! He-help! Somebody! Aaah! Nooo! Ooh!" Like some frightened feline having its butt shaved, the classy cat burglar shrieked and squealed in utter displeasure. Her canine captor, however, ignored her pleas. It burst through the foliage with Alice in tow. Consequently, the woman left a human-sized gap in the Pruitt's foundation garden. She thrashed her arms, tried to get ahold of a root or stalk by which she could secure herself, but her flimsy, feminine grip failed her.

Fortunately, as the mixed-breed abruptly turned into the driveway, the leash around the lady thief's ankles came undone. She tumbled unto the pavement, hurtled towards the dirty slush piled up on the edge of the drive. Imitating a loose log of timber, she rolled on. Her journey ended only when she settled face-down upon the aforementioned mound of icy slop. For a few seconds, she lay there, unmoving. Then, with much effort, she pushed herself up. Face smeared with sludge, meticulously styled hair reduced to a disheveled mop, the villainous beauty appeared less of a beauty and more a foul, messy parody of her formerly glamorous self. Her catsuit was flecked with dirt, leaves, twigs, and other bits of nameless debris. Her earpiece dangled haphazardly over her shoulder.

A look of pure murder burned in Alice's eyes as she spat out a mouthful of yew needles and gagged at the thought of maybe having swallowed a bug or two.

By now, the dog was nowhere to be found. Alice didn't give a damn, though. As far as she was concerned, the mongrel could rot in whatever rathole it managed to lose itself in. The woman was, rather, more interested in salvaging what little pride she could muster. Shifting her unsmiling gaze, wary of onlookers, she surveyed the area. An empty backdrop greeted her, signaling that no one else had glimpsed her shame (except for her three associates and, very likely, the accursed Pruitt brat). It sounded paranoid, yet neither could she deny the kid's ultimate involvement. The notion raised her annoyance to new heights.

Alice scrambled onto her feet, rubbed her tender rump, and sighed. On wobbly legs, she moved to retreat, but something caught her attention. From where the lady thief stood, she could spot her fox fur hat resting by the wayside. She easily recalled its exorbitant price tag, its authentic make. The voluptuous criminal refused to abandon such a posh symbol of excess. Besides, the fur hat offered an additional saving grace; it could spare her the awkwardness of having others notice her now unkempt hairdo. This eliminated all doubts she may have harbored. She simply had to retrieve it. Both materialism and the wish to prevent any further humiliations consumed her. She limped towards her object. In any case, she reckoned, it was improbable for the situation to go from bad to worse, to spiral so out of control as to defy all rationality.

 _Rrrrrrriiiiiiippppp!_

She had spoken too soon! As Alice bent over, her round buttocks stretching the already unbelievably tight catsuit even tighter, a ripping sound cut through the air, echoed in the morning calm. The woman gasped. Her eyes stared out as if into the distance and bulged in horror. Emulating all the air-headed young girls she so very adamantly despised, the femme fatale's lips formed a shocked, bimbo-esque "O". She blushed. It seemed that the tense material of her catsuit had undergone enough stress for one day. The outfit had exploded at the seams, revealing a generous portion of her ass along with her vivacious red panties, embellished with lace, printed all over with cute little white hearts. The tear extended from just below her utility belt down to her crotch panel. An assortment of cables, transmitters, and batteries spilled out from the same gash. They dangled between her legs as though the tail had finally been pinned on the donkey. Of course, the donkey herself couldn't believe it; she didn't dare to believe it. Dignity in tatters, there was nothing left for her to do but request support from her adoring fans.

Squatting slightly, head bowed between her legs, the not-so-classy cat burglar reeled in her microphone cord, formerly her wrist communicator, feeling the line press against the crease of her bum. She then re-activated her earpiece. "I need assistance," she spoke begrudgingly. "I'm exposed."

The silly admission sent a shiver down her spine. On the other end, Jernigan tried to keep from snickering. "Maintain your position. Do not, I repeat, do not draw attention to yourself."

Alice put on her fur hat and her sunglasses. A breeze nipped her in the derriere.

She wanted an audience, and she got what she asked for. Those bumbling idiots back at the SUV had viewed every ridiculous detail of her humiliation. She knew Unger and Jernigan would never let her forget the fact. What bothered her most, however, was the idea that she had no choice but to rely on those cretins to rescue her. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Still, she had to get out of there and fast. She trudged onwards to the agreed rendezvous point, each step causing extra equipment to leak from the widening tear. Electronic alarms linked to her suit beeped non-stop. Upon arrival at the sidewalk, she crossed her arms, tapped her boot impatiently.

Unbeknownst to the woman, she couldn't have arrived at a more inopportune moment. Every door across the neighborhood was subsequently flung open. The lady thief was in for a nasty, nasty surprise! Swarms of children burst onto the scene. Ready for school, they headed for the bus stop located merely several meters beyond where Alice stood waiting. Obviously, it was impossible for this youthful horde to neglect the miserable adult and her much publicized panties. The lively red color contrasting against shiny black leather made her stick out. It was like waving a crimson rag before a herd of raging bulls.

"No! No! No! No! Nooooo! Aaah! Stop!" Alice cried to no avail.

The schoolchildren quickly surrounded her. They brought out their cellphone cameras, taking pictures and recording videos of her exposed backside. She clutched her ass with both hands in a futile attempt to cover herself, but the kids responded in kind; they slapped her wrists away and continued to overpower the professional thief undaunted.

Amidst shouts, one of the brats shot spitballs at her with a straw. Another yanked the waistband of her panties, expanding the tear in her catsuit and displaying more of her magnificent butt.

It was in such a powerless state that Beaupre, Unger, and Jernigan discovered their sole female colleague. She recognized the blue SUV and jumped into the backseat, screaming for Jernigan to drive, drive, drive. The little girl who'd grabbed the waistband of her panties let go then and there. The elastics snapped into place with a sharp, deafening crack, making the woman jerk upwards so that she hit her head on the roof of the getaway car.

"Yooouuuccchhh – !"

They then fled the vicinity, retreated towards the ranch house to recuperate.

On the way, Earl Unger broke into a fit of hysterical laughter. "I gotta congratulate you, Alice," the huge, muscular man howled, clasping his stomach. "That was a ripping good job you did there. I really liked the screaming for help bit. But my favorite part was THAT ending. Red with white hearts? Bow-wow!"

Jernigan smiled knowingly at the comment. He concurred. "Yes. You sure showed them."

Alice gnashed her teeth. "Shut up!" she yelled, struggling to preserve a domineering front while clinging to her tough girl persona. With her flushed cheeks, her untidy appearance, and her split pants however, the woman frankly came off as comical in her defensiveness. The merriment gradually died, but the insults remained etched in her consciousness. She felt infuriated. Still, despite having her ego wounded, despite having been made to look like a total ass, defeat was the last thing on her mind.

Revenge! She wanted revenge! Her bloodlust had been stoked, her hatred for the Pruitt boy solidified. The inevitability of all-out assault descended upon her and the rest of the gang. They'd be back!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

When they returned to the ranch house, the robbers agreed to a reprieve of two hours. It was enough of an interval to collect themselves, to put on their gear, and to ensure reduced civilian distraction. Diplomacy had fallen apart like the lady thief's leather catsuit. Unabashed warfare remained the sole viable option. Within two hours, they'd launch out onto the field full force. And those two hours were almost up.

The side of her mouth twitching in annoyance, Alice examined the hole in her previous outfit. She held it up to the light then passed her hand through the wide, open tear. An utter waste! She threw the damaged costume into the trash as vile, ugly thoughts coalesced in her brain. She couldn't very well be sure if the Pruitt brat had caused her last bout of indignity, but she felt the irresistible urge to strangle the pest nonetheless. Someone had to take the fall for making her look like a dipstick in public, for making her inadequacies visible to herself if only for a short while.

Now, mere minutes before the siege, the woman had finished washing the gunk off her face and brushing her hair back into place. Despite having had a pine cone shoved up her ass, despite having been dragged across soil and slush, and despite having had her panties exposed in public, she recovered from each of those encounters with little more than a slight limp and a glowing red tush. Alice retained her killer looks, her sexy figure. The prospect of permanently losing any of those prized qualities didn't occur to her. Indeed, she imagined that the boy had already done his juvenile worst, that he'd run out of tricks. Just as well, she had a few tricks up her own sleeve. Knife, taser, pistol, ammunition – she made a mental note of each handsome instrument lovingly designed for maximum overkill.

This time, prepped for the final battle, she wore two layers of clothing. The first layer consisted of a pair of cream-colored thermal underwear bottoms, a white turtleneck sweater, and woolen socks to keep warm with in the midst of the blizzard. On top of that, the second layer was comprised of a pair of grey, knee-high ugg boots and a white one-piece snowmobile suit that emphasized her ass, following seamlessly the curvature of her buttocks while inflating it to appear twice as large, twice as fluffy. She completed the outfit with her utility belt, mittens, and a cap fit for the winter season. In spite of all the cushioning, she still managed to convey a high degree of femininity. Each enticing step she took made the fabric tighten around her legs, made the fabric strain against her butt with its attractive and blatantly visible crack. It hinted at the shapely flesh underneath. She could've driven any man or woman wild with desire.

Satisfied, Alice went down to the kitchen where Beaupre waited. The older man reclined by the sink, staring up at the sky. The snow outside fell harder. He'd clearly just eaten a pack of salted crackers and was about to sneak another into his pocket when Alice filched the snack from his hand. She laid it on the counter with a flourish.

"No food on the mission," she scolded coolly. "You wouldn't break protocol now, would you?"

Beaupre drew a deep breath then exhaled. "It's about time we go."

Both thieves exited the ranch house. Unger and Jernigan had gone on ahead. Alice adjusted the frequency on her wrist communicator then whispered into it. "We are on our way. What is your status?"

Unger's rough voice broke through the static. "Everything's peachy. I've cut the phone lines and Jernigan here has blocked the main road. No cops. We're moving in on that shit."

"We'll see you inside then."

"Heh. Good luck on that. This kid's got the place locked up pretty darn good. You better watch out."

"What do you mean, Mr. Unger?"

Unger laughed sarcastically. "High voltage! Danger! Danger! Little prick's built himself a make-shift electric fence. Really cute, too. Some home defense system! Probably doesn't even work."

"Don't be too shocked. It's easy to forget how extraordinarily foolish children can be. Over and out."

[…]

Holed up in his attic, home alone, Alex Pruitt scrutinized the improvised video security system he'd built the night before. A bunch of old televisions lay on top of each other in an evenly spread stack, and each monitor displayed visual feedbacks from 8mm cameras strategically hidden throughout the house. All of them were set to record the day's events for evidence and for posterity.

The boy smiled. On one screen, a familiar van parked outside his house by the east side. Two men wearing white camouflage snowsuits with ammunition belts stepped out onto the pavement. Alex flipped through a thick booklet on his left; it was entitled _World's Most Wanted_ – a compendium of the most dangerous criminals to have ever disgraced the planet with their presence. He easily found their entries, and recognized them as the same two men from the chase.

The man with the pony-tail and a week's worth of stubble was logged in the book as Earl Unger, a mean mercenary who'd served as a hired gun for dictators across the globe, last spotted somewhere in Latin America, now here in a quiet Chicago suburb. Next to him, the clean-shaven man with the thousand-mile stare went by the name of Burton Jernigan, also known online as "the Eel", a lawless hacker specializing in the theft and sale of corporate, state, and military secrets. The reward money for their arrest totaled in the millions. Yet, simply observing them minus their disguises, Alex knew that they weren't to be taken lightly. He reasoned, though, that he could still win if these scary adults under-estimated him. Guerrilla tactics were the key. And he was glad to see the terrible duo split up so early. Unger traveled to the front door on the west side of the house, while Jernigan stayed on the east end.

At that moment, Alex could see Unger pause in front of his improvised electric fence, a deceptive trap which seemed like a harmless web of yarn near a warning sign. The pony-tailed mercenary chortled then stooped over to snip it with wire cutters. As soon as the metallic surface touched the copper concealed inside the strings, however, blue sparks flew. The man was promptly electrocuted. His pony-tail burst asunder as the current coursed through his dark, frayed locks. Smoke emanated from him. The cartridges around his waist exploded, and the bozo was sent spiraling backwards, alive but temporarily paralyzed.

The kid snickered.

He directed his sights on the other crook, watching as Jernigan ambled across the lawn at a leisurely pace. The hacker was clearly clueless as to the traps scattered therein. A conveniently placed wrought-iron chair hooked up to a car battery was enough to dispatch him. It set the seat of his pants aflame and fried his own ammo belt. The poor techie went diving into the snow, desperately trying to extinguish the fire.

The combined antics of these dorks amused Alex. He'd never had so much fun before in his life. Still, he wondered where the other two burglars might be.

He went over by the window and peeked into his telescope. There they were! The big butt lady and the man in black were walking up the street, the woman clinging onto the man's arm, acting all lovey-dovey. If he didn't know better, he'd have mistaken them for a newly-wed couple. Alex saw through their façade, however. The lady's bulky lesbian jumpsuit was a dead giveaway to her true orientation.

He flipped through the guidebook again.

He had a nagging suspicion that he'd seen the man in black before; now that Alex had a clearer image of his face, there was no mistaking it – he was the same guy whose mug adorned the cover of the book!

The boy gasped. The man's real name was unknown, but he'd gone by the assumed names of Aleksandr Krupsky, Edward Teller, Viktor Zhukov, and Jean Lefleur. Alex had overheard the other scoundrels calling him Beaupre, and guessed that it was merely an alias too. Nonetheless, what he read sounded closer to rumor than fact. FBI Reports claimed that the man was once a KGB spy, that he'd retained these contacts long after the dissolution of the Soviet Union to commit crimes on an international scale, all without once having been caught. Yikes!

Surely, the big butt lady was not to be outdone by her partner. Despite being a relative newcomer with a criminal career spanning less than a decade, Alice Ribbons was well on her way to becoming the most infamous and most prolific female thief in recent history, a real-life Catwoman as the newspapers dubbed her. What she lacked in years, she compensated for in sheer tenacity. She'd participated in over a hundred prominent heists, pilfering jewelry, cash, artifacts, statues, paintings, and anything else of astonishingly high value. She'd never been successfully convicted and her criminal record was as clean as a toddler's rap sheet. Still, police agencies across the globe were onto her. The testimonials of the countless felons she'd betrayed to save her own skin guaranteed that much.

Alex shivered. Compared to the first two clowns, Alice and Beaupre were in the big leagues. Yet, where were they off to? Why weren't they attempting to enter the house? He swiveled his telescope to where the pair was headed, and the answer immediately disheartened him, for it was Mrs Hess!

[…]

Alice felt genuinely delighted to see Mrs Hess. The incident at the airport which instigated this week-long farce remained fresh in her memory. Brimming with hatred, she yearned to payback the old crone for "sabotaging" her mission. This was her chance. She glanced up at Beaupre and, as her breathtaking baby blues met his faded green eyes, she understood that he thought the same.

"How fortunate. Look who woke up from her nap," Beaupre stated sardonically.

Alice's soft red lips formed a sadistic grin. "Shall we go say hello?"

"Definitely. Although… a minor performance is in order."

That was the signal. Leaning close to Beaupre's shoulder in a false show of affection, the lady thief wrapped herself around the older man's arm and forced her mouth into a wide, ditzy smile. Like fine pearls, her brilliant teeth gleamed in the sun's rays. She had to make a good first impression in order to win her target's trust, to lure in her prey. Only then could she strike. Zero witnesses, zero nuisances. She'd been waiting a long, long time for this. Next to the brat, this Mrs Hess proved the most bothersome, most infuriating, most loathsome insect Alice had thus far encountered. Her heart beat rose in excitement. The pair approached the old woman.

"Good afternoon!" Alice chimed in sing-song fashion, sounding as if the most sickeningly saccharine of upper-middle class housewives. "My husband and I have just moved into the neighborhood."

Mrs Hess glared at her as though Alice were crazy. "Well, what do you want? A Willkie button?"

The lady thief stopped in her tracks. Her cheerful countenance gradually yielded to an irked grimace. She trembled, anger rising short of boiling point. How dare this bitch! Alice didn't expect to be so blatantly disrespected, especially not by some sour hag!

Beaupre quickly noticed the change in his female colleague's demeanor. Judging from the crushing grip which threatened to shred the sleeve off his coat, he deemed it necessary to control the uneasy situation. He stepped forward. "Let me explain. We were supposed to have an important package delivered to us, ma'am. But apparently the driver got confused. We thought maybe he brought the package here, since you share the same address on Washington as we have on Jefferson Street."

"Nobody brought anything here," Mrs Hess muttered.

"We checked with the delivery company," Beaupre insisted. "They told us no one was home so the driver left it in the garage."

The old lady shook her head. "Not my garage!"

"Please," Alice intervened, checking her temper, putting on a stereotypically pleading tone. "My husband here is an entomologist. The package contains several thousand parasitic worms from Latin America. They carry many dreadful diseases. Some incurable. It's very important that we find it."

Mrs Hess wavered at the mention of worms and diseases. She stood in thought for half a minute then spoke. "Fine! Fine! Fine! Come take a look. I doubt you'll find anything though."

"Wonderful," Beaupre exclaimed. Those were the exact words he wanted to hear. "Allow me to leave you girls to it. I'll be right back with the car." Yet, of course, there was no car and no package either. The man in black, an ominous silhouette against the clean, postcard-perfect backdrop, strode towards the Pruitt house. Whatever the case, his partner would take care of Mrs Hess. He almost felt obligated to send a wreath to the ensuing funeral. Almost.

Gently, very sweetly, Alice took the old lady by the arm as if to help her up the driveway. "Of all the people in the world, I have to marry a man who's interested in endoparasitic invertebrates," she commented with a wistful sigh. She derived a devious pleasure from this kind of banter – the same sort of joy an arachnid might experience from lulling its quarry into a false sense of security prior to an ambush. "My mother asked why it couldn't have been a nice lawyer or an engineer." The whole process whetted her appetite. "Oh, but attraction works in mysterious ways." She was going to eat her hapless victim alive.

When they reached the garage, Alice lingered by the entrance while Mrs Hess scanned a few dusty boxes for the so-called package. The old lady had her back turned to the voluptuous, young woman. A short distance lay between them. The anticipation was too much to bear. And the cat burglar pounced. With a flick of the switch, the shutters came down, reverberating like prison bars upon touching bottom.

Perplexed, Mrs Hess spun around in the semi-darkness. She locked her questioning stare on the woman in white. "What are you doing? Why did you close the door?"

Resting a hand on her cocked hip, an evil twinkle in her eye, Alice dropped the cutesy act. She calmly pulled out a modified Ruger MK-II pistol from a hidden compartment inside her snowsuit and aimed the weapon at the old lady's chest. "I left my heart in San Francisco," she purred. Mrs Hess froze.

The beautiful villainess could taste the fear in the musty air. She savored it and licked her lips. She ran her gaze over her hostage's elderly frame, noting the cold sweat developing on the senior citizen's furrowed brow, the terror enclosed in little but a thin sweater and a house dress – details which furnished her with a wicked idea. Using the barrel of her pistol, she gestured at a lawn chair. "I want you to sit over there. Make a noise and I'll make a louder one with this gun. That's it. Good."

Mrs Hess obeyed, too frightened to put up any resistance.

The lady thief gloried in the power. It intoxicated her. She didn't care if she was dealing with a stupid kid or a senior citizen; what mattered to her was the thrill of dominating another human being, the thrill of holding somebody else's life in the balance. She was addicted to pain, her own excluded. She knew this made her a naughty girl, a very bad girl. Yet, she unapologetically reveled in the fact, making no secret of it to anyone, least of all to herself.

She took out a large roll of surgical tape from her utility belt and dangled it in front of Mrs Hess. Tearing sounds soon echoed within the sealed room. In an instant, she slapped a strip across the old woman's mouth. Such violence warmed her soul, stimulated the vixen's moistening pussy. The rest of the cruel play proceeded painfully slow. Alice bound her victim's limbs to the arms and legs of the chair, committing each careful motion to memory. She did the wrists first, then kneeled down to do the ankles. All the while, her snowsuit rode up her ass and her slit, teasing those most sensitive parts of her body. It was pure, unadulterated ecstasy. She couldn't help but taunt her prey some more. She leaned forward, her face mere inches away from Mrs Hess's tortured visage.

With unflinching eye contact, she addressed the purported saboteur in a sultry whisper. "Here's a thought for you to consider in your next life…. At airport security, always make sure you have the right package."

The old lady's pupils widened. She got the message; Alice unfailingly detected this and beamed.

"Funny isn't it? Your fate tied to a toy car. It's so… absurd. But, that's not all." Alice straightened herself. She encircled her hostage until she stood behind her, stopping to apply more tape round Mrs Hess's torso. "I certainly hope you're not… fond of that little boy across the street." This remark got a slightly more interesting reaction. The old lady gawked at her captor, began finally to fight her restraints. The meaningless effort, though, simply entertained the lady thief. She digested the sight, practically on the verge of orgasm, elated by the picture of another person's exquisite and spectacularly delicious suffering.

There were, however, bigger fish to fry. The appetizer tickled her fancy, but she couldn't postpone the main course any longer. At that, Alice unplugged the internal heating system. She kissed the old woman on the forehead – a parting gift, a kiss of impending death – then waltzed out the rear exit, giggling, turning back only to admire her handiwork.

"I'll leave this open, sweetie," she said, her foot on the doorstop. "The fresh air will be good for you."

[…]

Alex had to admit it; he was genuinely impressed. The robbers were learning fast, perhaps a tad too fast for his liking.

It was thirty minutes into the assault.

After he recovered from the jolt, Unger made the rather intelligent decision of leaping over the electric fence. Consequently, he discovered the extension cord, ripped it from its socket, and demolished the web of string and copper wires. The mercenary didn't stop there, though. Suspecting another snare, he kicked the welcome mat into the gutter, thus exposing the marbles concealed below.

Not bad, Alex thought.

Before long, Unger was joined by Beaupre. The two conversed awhile, shaking their heads, gesticulating at the fallen vestiges of the dismantled traps. Alex watched in suspense. The man in black pointed at the roof, no doubt having located the barbells the kid had placed up there that morning. Immediately, the two men moved aside, out of range. Anyway, the barbells were tied to the front door via fishing line. To cross the threshold, one would first have to trigger the release mechanism, thus causing the weights to drop – completely avoidable if one knew where to stand.

Alex frowned. That was one of his favorite tricks too! He couldn't let it go to waste. And though he promised himself he'd let the traps do all the work, special measures were required. Those bad guys demanded it. The boy nonchalantly fetched a pair of scissors then clipped the contingency cables. Without warning, all the traps in that single vicinity were automatically deployed. Cherry bombs on the left and right of the villains detonated, pushing them into the center of the porch. The window above them suddenly shattered into a million pieces as an old steamer trunk burst through the glass at fearsome speed. It plummeted down upon the pair, ruptured upon contact, raining its fill of hard-bound encyclopedias everywhere. Soon, Beaupre and Unger lay sprawled on the ground. Within seconds, the barbells subsequently followed. It was a photo finish, nothing else like it, and all captured direct-to-video.

[…]

She was happy to be rid of the hag. Alice had almost forgotten what it was like to be at the very top of the food chain, had almost forgotten how utterly exhilarating it felt. Her glee gave way to irritation, however, as she advanced towards the Pruitt house. Two familiar bodies greeted her, moaning like sick patients, surrounded by books. Somehow, the lady thief didn't think it at all surprising. She simply pursed her lips, rolled her eyes, and approached her cohorts. It was truly so predictable of men, she believed, so typical for them to screw up, to think with their muscles instead of their wits.

"You got hit with a book?" she prodded, her tone as acerbic as ever.

Unger sat up, holding a handful of snow to his head. "Books," he corrected. "Plural. A trunk full of books. Plus a set of weights. We got hit twice, you dumb broad."

Alice crossed her arms. "Excuse me, Mr Unger. But I didn't get taken down by an infant."

"Enough!" Beaupre interjected, visibly exhausted. "We didn't anticipate the defense the boy would mount. He's clever. We're going to have to presume we're on equal ground with him, adapt our plan accordingly."

"Let's just burn the fucking house," Unger whined.

"We'll lose the chip, moron," Alice retorted.

"Cram it, spiteful witch. What do you say, Beaupre? I'll grab a torch. We can roast marshmallows."

The man in black massaged his temples. "May we continue, please? I assume Mr Jernigan is somewhere in the east. I'll go in the front. Mr Unger, you take the north side. Alice, you take the south. Remember, the entire house is booby-trapped. Be on your guard."

The very image of the burly mercenary nodding in grim assent was too much for her.

Alice stalked off in silence. The lady thief couldn't believe how willing these buffoons were to take that craven ignoramus of a brat so seriously. She thought it laughable. Traps? What nonsense. How could they worry about a child's harmless pranks? So much for being grown men! They descended even lower in her estimation.

She traversed the side alley, trudging through the snow to the southern entrance. Chin up, arms swaying like a plastic legionnaire's, nary the tiniest hint of hesitation in her brisk, purposive steps, she abandoned caution to the wind. The wooden gate barely registered to her. She firmly grasped the handle and, pushing against it, fully expected to be past this trivial obstacle. "Ooomph!" The gate, though, refused to budge. The woman pushed again with added ferocity. "Huroomph! Oomph! Grrrrr…." Yet, that too garnered the same results. Alice wasn't in the mood for games. In her mind, the accursed rugrat had merely delayed the inevitable by locking the door; he couldn't halt her. She had ambitions – women, power, cash, jewelry, a French villa – and she was sticking to them. Frustrated, she removed her mittens and reached over the gate, fumbling after the latch in order to open it from behind.

Unfortunately, in her hurry, the classy cat burglar failed to perceive the bucket of sheet flooring adhesive hanging there. _Splat!_ Her hand abruptly plunged into the sticky pale substance!

Confusion seized her. Alice couldn't process what exactly she was clutching, couldn't fathom this moist, gelatinous mass which now engulfed her fist, caressing her delicate skin, oozing into the spaces between her fingers, fastening tight. She had to do a double take. "Glue?!" She sneered. It was unbelievable! Scrunching her face in unparalleled disgust, the villainous vixen tried to withdraw, to wrench herself free. She dug her heels into the ground, twisted her wrists, thrashed about, pulled and pulled. Still, the adhesive wouldn't release. Rather, it stretched like a nauseating rope of snot, tethering her dainty, well-manicured hand to the insides of the container.

"Oooooh! Nice try, kid…. Urgh! But you'll need a lot more than this to save yourself!"

She stomped backwards, wincing as progress grew increasingly difficult. By then, the elongated coil of adhesive had lengthened into a six foot python. "One more," she told herself, "just one more!" Alice lifted her foot and vigorously rammed it down. This did the trick. The bucket was dislodged from its residence. It sailed across the air and – before she could react – crashed into her sumptuous breasts with sufficient impact to knock her off her feet. "Oooofphhh!"

The femme fatale plummeted upon her ass, found that she could hardly breathe on account of her aching tits. To make matters worse, she'd been doused in a gallon of goop! The wretchedly viscous liquid coated her gorgeous face along with the whole of her torso. On both her arms, it hung suspended in thick, rubbery strands, sinking then rising then spilling onto the snowy earth in an uneven rhythm. She sputtered and gagged. The pungent stench of solvent flooded her nostrils. In a wild panic, she rushed to wipe the mess off with her gummed up hands, but these motions served only to further spread the glue.

Alice wanted to scream. Yet, no sound emerged, except for an inhuman gurgle.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Alex Pruitt beheld the silly woman on the screen as she thrashed about in the snow like a wild cat caught in fly paper. He was utterly transfixed. When he first hung the bucket of flooring adhesive by the gate, he hadn't expected that its contents would be unloaded over the entire upper half of Alice's body. Indeed, he had predicted mere hand-to-bucket cohesion at most, a lost glove at the very least.

Reclining in an old couch in the attic, legs up on the table, the boy slurped his soda and opened a bag of potato chips. "What do you think, Doris?" Alex called out to the allied rat. "Should we make things more interesting for the bad lady?"

The rodent's ebullient squeaks elicited a snicker from the boy. "I'm gonna take that as a yes."

At this, he grabbed the remote control and began fiddling with the buttons, repositioning the cameras at the southern entrance so as to find the burglar's most flattering angles. One lens filmed her from above in a full frontal wide shot. Another zoomed in on her wondrous posterior from below, immortalizing every bounce and every jiggle of those beauteous buns. Luckily for Alex, his subject was no longer sitting in the slush; she'd managed to stand, albeit on wobbly legs. All the pieces were in place. The kid ran to the window and brusquely snipped a cord overhead. It glided across an elaborate system of pulleys then vanished out into the yard. Before long, a pitchfork tied to the other end of the rope pendulously swung down from its treetop perch, diving straight into the woman's round, curvaceous rump.

Alice's mouth shot open as though to shriek, but not the slightest peep erupted. Instead, a great shiny glue bubble formed around her lips, expanding in circumference with each excruciating second until, finally, it broke off. As the woman shivered and gasped, her mouth freed from the gooey prison, the bubble floated awhile in a drunken stupor. When it popped, the reverberations of her captured scream blasted across the neighborhood, distorting the air through which the sound waves travelled.

"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

The earth itself shook. Car alarms blared madly in the aftermath. Dogs burst into vigorous fits of howling and barking.

Alex doubled over, laughing so hard that he spilled his potato chips all over the floorboards. It was simply music to his ears. He reverted his gaze to the stack of television monitors and studied the close-up of Alice's tormented butt. The three-pronged weapon had torn three pint-sized holes in the seat of her white onesie. It pierced right through the first layer of padding, through the second layer of thermal underwear bottoms, leaving in its wake some ragged fragments of thread and some shredded scraps of nylon which drooped around the edges of each hole. To top it off, the boy could spy a flash of vivid purple panties, hints of an elegant floral print. This did his heart good. The bad lady very much deserved it.

[…]

Alice rubbed her ass, inadvertently slathering glue over it, hoping to soothe the pain. By then, the flooring adhesive had begun to assume a semi-transparent state. Her delicate features, though lightly obscured by a coat of slime, came increasingly into view. Movement of the facial muscles remained challenging, but not impossible. She gnashed her teeth and cursed under her breath.

A pitchfork?! It was enough to set her blood boiling. The voluptuous thief determined that strangling the Pruitt kid for these transgressions just wouldn't do; she was going to tear him limb from limb! And yet, the matter of having to attend to this infernal gate confronted her. She needed to focus, to calculate her next move. Breathing deeply, narrowing her eyes, Alice scanned her surroundings until she seized upon the pitchfork still hanging listlessly from its branch. Eureka! She grinned from ear to ear, then snatched the inert gardening tool, astounded by her own ingenuity. With this, she could effortlessly pole vault to the other side. The idea tickled her fancy; it was daring, flamboyant – but, best of all, she adored the irony of using an enemy's armaments against them.

"You'll have to do better than that, kid! You're not facing off against some cheap, run-of-the-mill thug! I'm the best of the best!"

So, without further ado, she raised the pitchfork like a lance and dashed forward. As she neared the hurdle, she planted the pitchfork with expert precision, lifting her legs, gracefully swinging herself up and over. The lady thief had the polish of an accomplished athlete. She released the handle, thoroughly at ease, and seemed to fly. Indeed, she gave this latest feat an air of class befitting a Russian ballet performance at the most exquisite of theaters. It appeared that the tides were finally turning in her favor.

Soon, Alice descended, poised to land squarely on her nimble feet. Her boots touched the soot-colored terrain beyond the wooden gate. But instead of being greeted by terra firma, the steep momentum of her arrival immediately broke the surface with a deafening squelch!

 _Sploorrrrrrch!_

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Nghh! Ah! N-noooooo!"

Her legs plowed through the wet earth as if cutting through butter. In an instant, her expensive uggs disappeared wholly from sight. The classy cat burglar sank into the soft, black mud, and feeling the sludge rising all around her, she continued to sink, to submerge into that dank and hungry mire. A helpless squawk issued forth from her gaping mouth. The gorgeous woman's mind blanked from the shock and displeasure she sustained on account of this most nasty and most unexpected of developments. Worse, the loss of her overpriced footwear simply could not sate the appetite of this improvised swamp. In no more than a split second later, Alice was up to her knees in the muck, completely immobilized.

Of course, having nothing solid on which to secure a proper foothold, she nearly toppled over. She flailed her arms about like a giant chicken, teetered her body to and fro, thrusting out her hips then thrusting out her arse in a rhythmically absurd fashion to keep from dropping straight into the mud. It didn't much matter, though. In the end, she lost her balance. The villainess sensed her legs fold beneath her as she knelt forward, dumbfounded. Before she knew it, the morass had climbed up her shapely thighs and half-buried her within its dense, undulating girth. There was no escape whatsoever.

And surely, her misfortunes didn't stop then, for somewhere in that treacherously narrow path stretched a taut line of tripwire. The wire was itself connected to a deadly holiday poinsettia and its vintage ceramic Santa planter, both of which rested precariously on one of the window sills overhead. When Alice had knelt down, the befuddled dame had unwittingly triggered the waiting snare. Without any warning, the potted poinsettia plunged three floors to the bottom.

"Gross! Absolutely disgusti –– !" she whined in the midst of the inevitable.

 _Bonk!_

"Ooh! Duh-durrrrr… guh… uuuuuh…."

It was a direct hit! The flower pot struck Alice on the top of her head, thus adding much injury to insult. The ceramic vessel shattered upon contact, but as wretched luck would have it, the contents of the broken pot roosted upon her cranium, fully intact. By all means, it looked as if the woman had sprouted leaves and become a ridiculous vegetable.

It was more than she could take. Arms slackening at her sides, body going numb, rocking slowly by its own volition, the femme fatale felt herself on the very verge of losing consciousness. A stream of saliva languidly trickled from her gaping lips. Her normally piercing blue eyes went dull and out of focus, the lids drooping, irises glazing over into a vacant and doll-like stare. The world seemed to whirl dangerously out of control. Tweeting birds flew circles around her. She groaned. Then everything blurred into darkness. The woman collapsed face down into the mud with her big butt cheeks raised high up in the air.

 _Splarrrt!_

[…]

The kid shook his head in mock disappointment.

"Playing in the dirt, Alice? Tsk tsk tsk. That is so unbecoming of a lady."

For all her bravado, the felonious female was neither as bright nor as crafty as the Pruitt boy had come to expect after reading her entry in the criminals' compendium. Oh well, he thought, she was still heaps of fun to watch. Furthermore, the mud pit served as a welcome addition to her budding list of punishments. It did its job swimmingly, and it hadn't been all that difficult to construct either. All he did was to hook one end of a garden hose to the thermostatic hydro-tap in his basement while the other end was left to run out into the side-yard. Nature handled the rest as hot water seeped into the soil all night, mixing with the cold air and resulting in a thick, steaming soup. It was a genuine case of more for less. It also rendered the thief an irresistibly easy target for the falling flower pots.

Now, stuck in a tender embrace with the marsh trail, Alice had drifted off to dreamland. Her glassy-eyed expression told Alex that she'd be out of commission for some time longer – a pleasing scenario. Nothing could be more perfect, really. So, he let her have her nap. Whatever the situation, he figured those spare minutes would be best used to catch up on the other scoundrels, to glimpse their progress.

Thus, a quarter of an hour passed as the assault crept along at the speed of molasses.

It was then that the kid noticed a small stirring on Alice's screen. He wiped his eyes and checked again. There was no mistake! The wicked woman's bum had begun to wiggle!

He magnified the crumpled figure to thrice its original dimensions. Plain as day, her plump ass spasmed. Her fingers twitched. Her shoulders rose and deflated, gradually at first, mounting faster, more panicked. Until, suddenly, Alice extended her arms and dug them deep into the sludge, pushing herself up with all the unrestrained fury of a She-Creature, desperate to refill her lungs! The face which occupied the television display scarcely resembled the ravishing young woman whom tabloids had earlier christened the divine muse of larceny. Rather, what emerged so startled the boy that he swiftly took shelter behind the sofa, heart thumping loudly in his chest.

[…]

Alice awoke from her fainting spell a changed woman. Woozy from the throbbing headache which threatened to split her skull in two, she felt positively awful. Nonetheless, this brief discomfort could not compare with the horror and outrage she experienced over her fresh makeover. Prior to even entering the house, the bombshell had been transformed into a bombsite. Gone was the seductive yet aristocratic aura that tended to hover about her like branded perfume; gone were any signs of the flawless sophistication she so prided herself on. All evaporated as though in a puff of smoke. The front of her once immaculate ski-suit was smeared black with filth. Her porcelain complexion, formerly the envy of many, was likewise plastered with the same sickeningly foul and malodorous slop. She retched, tried to blow the muck out of her nostrils, to brush it off her countenance. But her every motion failed to get the desired effect.

The mud clung stubbornly to her skin, moist and chunky, smothering her super sensitive pores. Moreover, it had blended with the flooring adhesive already splattered there.

To anyone else, the outcome wouldn't have been all that surprising. To the prissy, vain thief, however, the revelation proved a devastating one. And as both substances congealed into an impenetrable mask, into a crap-colored facial that refused to be peeled away, Alice issued forth a cry overflowing with all the frustrations of a beauty besmirched. She shuddered. Then with quaking hands, she punctuated this little tantrum by taking her cap, squeezing it and biting down on the hapless accessory, casting it aside when she'd finally achieved some semblance of calm.

Of course, she had no intentions of either submission or retreat. She knew there was no way she'd ever be able to live down the shame if she ran. She required closure. And what better way to shut this unsavory chapter of her life forever than to expunge that insolent child from existence.

"Huff… huff… brat… you… are… dead! Just as soon as I –– Ugh! Just as soon as I –– Oooh! Ewwww!"

The woman's troubles, though, persisted. Besides having had her looks match the inner ugliness of her soul, she hadn't yet rescued her lower half from the bog. This too was no stroll in the park. The mud possessed the consistency of tar, and whenever she wriggled her legs in a bid to loosen the firmly packed earth, it would only tighten its grip. Regardless, grunting and moaning like a constipated porker, Alice struggled furiously. She tripled her efforts, then quadrupled them when that wasn't enough. She strained her muscles to their very maximum, jerking, humping, tugging, wrestling against gravity, against the pull of the gluttonous mire, against all hell; she strained with such intensity that her heaving ass started to swallow her pretty panties, to bunch them up between its shadowy crevice, chaffing!

In the end, diligence paid off. _Flooooorp!_

Alice managed successfully to extricate herself, albeit at the cost of abandoning her boots. Now, amidst the mess, the thief stood on stockinged feet. Exhaustion wracked her. She panted, hot and sweaty inside her ruined onesie, so drenched in fact that she was utterly mortified at the possibility of having lost bladder control. It drove her nuts, but she forced herself to plod onward. Surveying the area, she learned that the whole side-yard had been converted into a pigsty. There was no going around it. The walls on either side of her guaranteed that.

Thus, she waded through the narrow passage, each step emitting a damp sucking noise, an audible slurp and squish. Sticky clumps of debris gathered on her discolored socks. A gritty wetness breached the fabric, crowding between her toes, caressing her soles. She advanced as if dragging a heavy load, and the herculean task expended much more of her energies than she'd anticipated. Very soon, the vile vixen realized that she'd ceased making any headway whatsoever. She squealed in misery. Then, grasping a knee with both hands, she yanked hard. Perhaps, a little too hard.

"Arghh! Nghh-ngh! Oooohhh! Ugh! Guh! Nooooo! I –– urrrghh! I –– oomph! I won't lose! I w-w-wo-whoa-whoa-whoaaa!"

No avoiding it, though. As she liberated her foot, the sludge underneath shifted and her other foot slipped. In an instant, Alice flopped down onto her back, smack dab in the center of that reeking, repulsive swamp. _Splaaaaaaam!_ The muck spread out, brimming forth from her weight, following the contours of her prostrate form. She made the finest mud angel. Yet, that wasn't the worst of her ordeal, for hidden there was another tripwire, now spurred into unleashing its terrible bounty upon the wide-eyed lady cat burglar. She seemed to be suffering from déjà vu. A flower pot (much like the one before) plummeted, its sculpted Santa sneer rushing to greet the naughty girl. Her jaw dropped. And before getting knocked out, she could've sworn that she could hear a cheerful "hohoho" ringing in her ears, berating her.

"M-mommy…! S-s-santa…! P-p-p-please…!"

 _Crack!_

The witch received a clobbering, a jardinière right to the mug. It was no ordinary piece of pottery that demolished her, however. Rather, this holiday-themed receptacle contained a prize inside unlike any other, an apt present to a high-profile criminal for whom years of reaping coal on countless Christmases have had zero impact – what else but a nice, subtle… brick!

Her rigorous training, her fancy gadgets, her feminine wiles – in other words, all her assets – were useless against this lowly contrivance and the junior architect guiding it. Consequently, she lay lifeless for the duration of the ensuing hour. When Alice revived, wrenching her arms free from the repugnant cesspool, the thief removed the offending block of baked clay and exposed yet another unpleasant alteration to her profile. Now not only was her nose swollen a purplish shade of crimson, but it was pushed upwards in such a manner as to make her appear undeniably hoggish. Furthermore, her hair was so thoroughly caked that currently it more resembled a hideous helmet than the sassy, stylized crop she was accustomed to. She squirmed, seething with anger and humiliation, totally flummoxed. Just how could she have been outsmarted by a rugrat? How could she have been brought so low? Reduced to wallowing about in mud! It didn't compute. For wasn't she supposed to be the untouchable mistress of others' fates? The queen-bee? Their manipulator? The conundrum practically left her at wit's end.

She snorted, rolled over, then got up on all fours. Despite the indignity of crawling, the fear of springing any future traps far outweighed the objections of her ego. The villainess needed to stay close to the ground if she wanted to more evenly distribute her weight or detect more of those tripwires.

"Steady now… steady… steady…. Ooohhh! Yuck! This is so demeaning!"

Of course, it didn't help that, as she floundered across, the mud below burbled and belched like some clogged public latrine.

Alice found relief only when she approached the end of the path. Swaying her cute derriere excitedly behind her, she hurried towards what she believed was the conclusion of the nightmare. Her insecurities faded away. She giggled, and the girlish tittering quickly escalated into an arrogant and throaty cackle. The woman imagined herself the lone survivor, no more to be made a fool of. The kid was as good as ancient history, she gloated; she'd seen right through him, right through his petty games. And unlike her stupid, stinking, grubby cohorts whom she now presumed either dead and/or dying, her vast intelligence would sooner or later triumph. She was hopelessly convinced of it. Thus, she clambered onto the snowy embankment, blind to the invisible dangers, blind above all to the cluster of mousetraps concealed therein!

 _Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap!_

"Aaaaaiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee!"

The moment she pressed her palms down to take hold of dry land, the latched springs leapt into action. Several mousetraps relentlessly clamped shut on the thief's fingers like piranhas in heat. Not a single digit was spared. Eyes watering, throat constricting from the pain, she withdrew her hands and pried off the metallic mandibles one by one. Unfortunately, the ambush had bequeathed Alice with puffy fingertips, bruised knuckles, plus a mood more rotten than ever before. The damage was done. Whatever happiness she may have felt mere seconds ago drained from her expression.

Subsequently, she brandished her upthrust fist against the heavens, growling her lungs hoarse. "Listen up, kid, wherever you are! You'll regret this! Starting now, I'm just about getting serious! No more mishaps, no more accidents! You hear me?! No more!"

Filled with sheer determination, the begrimed belle finished her sojourn in the mud pit. She crossed the threshold into the backyard, circumvented the vague outline of what looked to be a frozen outdoor pool, and marched her way to the porch. However, having grown wary of everything, she remembered to inspect the porch steps before climbing them. This extra caution rewarded her immensely. The woman's lips twisted into an evil smirk as she discovered how the treads had been neatly sawn through the middle. It further enlivened her when she spotted a complex contraption lingering directly under those stairs – a Rube Goldberg machine which, she frankly deduced, was designed to ignite a box of firecrackers and other China-made incendiaries with an automatic lighter once provoked. She didn't know whether to be sincerely grateful or profoundly annoyed at the insight.

"Did you build this for me, you little monster? That's so sweet," she scoffed. "Hah! Nice try. But what sort of harebrained ditz do you take me for?! Prepare to eat humble pie! I'm coming up!"

With that, Alice clutched the railings and kicked her feet off the ground as if using parallel bars. She attempted an encore presentation of gymnastic finesse, a show of skill to demonstrate (perhaps more to herself than to anyone else) that she really had no reason to doubt in her own prowess. Adrenalin raced to the modern amazon's head, pumping straight into her besieged sense of superiority, healing its wounds, propping it up. "Okay, on the count of three. One…. Two…. Thwaaaaaaah!"

There was only one problem. The cat burglar had forgotten to check the railing posts themselves! In no time at all, before she could make a proper dismount, before she could even process what was happening, the railings fell apart, their foundations having been perforated like Swiss cheese the previous night. Terror etched itself on her muck-covered face. She crashed unceremoniously onto the rigged steps below, smashing them beneath her large, luscious badonkadonk while initiating a chain reaction of hitherto unheard proportions. For her part, Alice freaked out, tried frantically to disentangle herself from the wreckage. But to no avail. The pressure she involuntarily applied had by then activated the mechanism and lit the main fuse. Sprawled on her back, legs elevated, booty invitingly splayed, she was defenseless to the incoming barrage.

An assortment of explosives promptly detonated on her unguarded buttocks! As though the Fourth of July had arrived early, sparklers spewed pyrotechnic clouds like blistering aureoles; firecrackers sizzled under her ass in consecutive spurts of lightning agony; and miniature missiles whizzed forth with the singular goal of anal annihilation. The rough rear treatment caused the femme fatale's eyes to roll so far back that she could almost see her brain registering the torture. She mewled and choked and whimpered, tongue lolling out of her mouth, body convulsing and seeming to dance.

It was pinecones all over again. The scorching sensation rippled across her roasted hams, biting at the succulent flesh, agitating the twin mounds of tush. Her itty-bitty bunghole tingled.

Eventually, as the fusillades sputtered out into cinders, fully spent, Alice collected herself enough to scramble away – albeit, with the seat of her muddy ski-suit aflame! She hopped from one foot to another, repeatedly spanking her own fanny as if this moronic gesture could extinguish the blaze. Instead, the fires surged higher, stronger.

"Eowwwwwww! Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!" she howled.

The risk of the conflagration reaching her pussy was abruptly compounded. Then and there, the woman did the most logical thing available to a person in her position. She plopped down onto her bum and, without a second thought, grinded it into the snow! The flames fizzled. Rainbow-tinted vapors emanated from the fierce physical contact. She sighed, eyes fluttering, lips betraying a dopey smile of satisfaction. After a while, the thief stood and massaged her backside, only to unveil the conspicuous half-moon she'd left behind in the slush, the butt-print she'd created in the chaos. That wasn't all, of course. Much, much more embarrassing was the large, smoldering aperture that'd been burned through the back of her pants and which now paraded her frilly silk undies in all their partly charred glory. Her reddened ass cheeks likewise spilled out of the opening, a testament to her newfound status as walking disaster zone.

Yet, something else seemed wrong, something in the atmosphere, something buzzing, droning. The din soared in volume as a frenzied shadow cast itself over the confused cat burglar. Her stomach clenched. She gulped then spun around, meeting face-to-face not with a solar eclipse, but with a swarm of wasps so huge it blotted out the sun. Clearly, these insects were on a revenge mission. Their nest, unbeknownst to the lady thief, had been decimated by a stray rocket. And wasps being wasps, someone had to pay dearly – in blood. Too bad for Alice, they'd chosen her!

"Eeep!" Although the soreness in her rump hadn't diminished, the villainess bolted for the porch, for the safe haven of the kitchen entrance. She dashed across the lawn, and the swarm chased her like a humming cone of mean aerial death. What the heck, she asked, were these wasps doing alive in winter anyway?! The question would go unanswered. She had merely journeyed a scant distance when, to her chagrin and to her pathetic caboose, one of her fiendish pursuers delivered a sharp, beastly sting.

This solitary attack prodded Alice into overdrive. She cartwheeled towards the battered steps, did a brisk somersault, then alighted on the mahogany deck. Straightaway, the floorboards tilted beneath her, thus revealing a trapdoor. She tumbled to the Pruitts' basement, to her next destination, shouting.

"Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!"

The bugs barely concerned her now, replaced as they were by a different trial which commanded her undivided dread. Fortuitously for the thief, her nemesis had foreseen this very contingency and readied an idle Jacuzzi as congratulations. She'd gotten this far after all. He had guessed that – at this point – the witch would be craving a decent bath, perhaps a warm shower or a meticulous scrubbing. So, he'd stuffed the tub with all the household items needed to promise a cushy splashdown. Soon, Alice was dunked in a few hundred gallons of milk, custard, cake mix, pudding, yogurt, oatmeal, cool whip, tomato sauce, mayonnaise, creamed corn, and chocolate syrup! The nauseating swill engulfed her together with her every selfish ambition, immersing them both where they rightly belonged: gunged.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Alice vanished beneath the goopy batch of swill with a wet, mighty splosh. The noise echoed against the musty basement walls then dissipated into silence.

For a while, the surface of the pool bubbled and frothed, as if at its very depths a submerged volcano were boiling over, further agitating the concoction of mushy food stuffs. Then something solid gradually emerged – a massive pair of lumps, no… buttocks! The heinous heinie bobbed up and down, covered with an oozing coat of pre-refrigerated vomit. It didn't stay above for long though. Soon, the twin mounds sank down once again into the lumpy liquid blend, and another strange object sprang up to the very top of the batter. Whatever it was, it looked curiously like a dead octopus, like a stringy mass of tentacles undulating and spreading itself out. This creature continued to rise, as if encountering for the first time the atmosphere of planet Earth. Slowly, it revealed its attachment to a vaguely humanoid head – Alice's head! And its hairy identity became all too clear.

The once poised and sophisticated cat burglar was clearly more blob than woman now. She found that she couldn't stop from coughing, couldn't stop choking or retching. She took several deep breaths, repeated the motions of inhaling then exhaling. But nothing could erase the impression of somehow having been violated. She bared her teeth in frustration. It wasn't pretty. It didn't feel pretty.

The mud pit had earlier disgraced her. Yet, at least, the sludge therein had merely touched her face, hair, hands and feet; her ski-suit had borne the bulk of the punishment.

But, there was no such luck now.

Due to the immense hole in the back of her pants, the swill managed to flow straight into her onesie. Large amounts of creamy oatmeal-yogurt mix slithered down her thighs, piling around her legs, smothering them, while a steady accretion of mayo chocolate pudding slunk up her back and along her belly, squirming into her bra and between her pert breasts. The clammy sensation made her skin crawl, made her nipples grow hard. Moreover, the massage jets built into the hot tub insisted on vibrating the spaces around the thief's pussy. Her moist cunt throbbed, baffled as to whether it ought to be repelled, pleasured, mortified, or maybe even all three.

It was at this point that, despite the gunk getting in her ears, she heard the approach of footsteps; too loud, too numerous to ascribe to a single person. She tensed as they came closer, and realized she had to hide. The vile vixen clutched the rim of the Jacuzzi and tried to pull herself out. However, having become clumsier in her movements, more desperate, she slipped. Falling backwards into the gunge, she ended up swallowing one nasty mouthful, followed by another for each time she gasped and gulped in revulsion.

"Glug-lug! Ugh! Bwaa! Blaaarggghh!"

A foul tangy flavor assaulted her refined palate. It was the kind of rancid zest nobody would ever be able to forget, no matter how often they'd wash out their own mouths with soap; a pungent taste potent enough to banish for all eternity the memory of good food and good wine. Of course, that was the least of her woes. For at that instant, her three male cohorts strode into the basement. They stood before the bedraggled ex-beauty, gawking wordlessly at her with their wide, astonished eyes. Alice likewise froze. Reality faltered. And by the time anyone had regained the ability to speak, a full minute had elapsed.

What most stunned the lady thief, though, wasn't the fact that she'd been caught in such a compromising state. Rather, it was that Beaupre, Unger, and Jernigan hardly had a scratch on them. Compared to her, they were paragons of cleanliness. They didn't even look tired!

"Alice? Is that you?" Beaupre questioned, narrowing his eyes as if to make sure that the messy creature in front of him was indeed his female colleague.

"What the heck happened to you?" Unger exclaimed. "You look like barf."

The woman blushed underneath the inch-thick layer of slop. Her chest tightened as her face went from hot to outright feverish. Her normally sultry tone of voice stammered and broke, replaced by an idiotic whine, too high, too girlish to command any respect. "Wh-why aren't you…? You're… you're supposed to be…? Didn't the traps…?!"

"Traps? Oh yeah! The traps! Uhm… Meh. They weren't a problem," Unger responded matter-of-factly. "You smarten up to them after a while. Gets pretty repetitive too."

Jernigan nodded his head in agreement. "Affirmative. The traps demanded some logic, even a bit of psychology to detect. We fell for them at first. But once we learned the patterns, they no longer posed a significant threat. Honestly, I found them quite fun. A swell intellectual exercise."

"F-f-f-fun?! I-impossible! How?! You of all people! You! You stupid, dirty, slack-jawed Neanderthals! You can't be that smart. You can't be!" Alice protested, very evidently flustered. Her tough woman façade – this illusion of being capable, empowered, and independent – crumbled. To the others, she came off sounding instead like a bratty schoolgirl spoiled rotten.

Unger yawned. He was sick of this self-entitlement crap. "Neanderthals? For you maybe. Fuck, at least I'm not the dumb bitch stewing up to my neck in shit. Someone needs a frickin' mirror."

Alice couldn't believe her ears. "You… you dare?!" Something in her snapped. She immediately fished out her pistol, aimed it at the unshaven mercenary, and fired, expecting bullets. Instead, a trickle of icky pale fluid spewed from the barrel. It truly seemed as if fate had conspired to embarrass her, to further enrage her. She then chucked the useless squirt gun at her target, but missed the mark, only to hit Jernigan right in the neck. The tech expert clutched at his throat and wheezed. But this didn't satisfy the woman. She proceeded to scoop up a handful of slime with the intention of wiping away Unger's smirk, of giving him just a smidgen of what she'd suffered through. Before she could hurl it though, Beaupre intervened, gesturing with his hands for them all to cease these shenanigans.

The man in black sighed, and his three comrades hushed themselves. "Please. Consider the situation. With the microchip in our sights, the little Pruitt boy cornered, and his traps… more or less revealed to us, we are nearing victory. This is no place for in-fighting. Have I made myself clear?"

The robbers assented in unison, unable to disagree with his reasoning.

"Good. Now, what we require is another change in our strategy. We must divide our ranks once more to ensure that the child does not escape. I will monitor the exterior of the house. The rest of you, stay inside, seize the chip. Alice, I leave you responsible for the interior. Objections? None? I trust you'll succeed." And at that, Beaupre was gone. The two remaining men frowned, their downcast faces appearing more miserable than ever. They didn't like the direction things were taking. Somehow, their leader's departure from the main group simply didn't bode well.

"Whoop-dee-do. The guy's gonna ditch us once things fuck up," Unger muttered.

"The probability of that happening may be approximated at 87.952%," Jernigan chimed in.

"Ugh! What nonsense! Don't you dimwits ever learn to shut up?!" Alice grumbled, extending her arms to her less than enthusiastic comrades. "Well? What are you stalling for? Get me out of here!"

Unger and Jernigan begrudgingly complied. They each took a gooey appendage then hauled the monstrosity of a woman out of her filthy prison. As she dripped profusely, a puddle of nameless yuck forming all around her, the lady thief easily resembled the Wicked Witch of the West in the midst of melting. That is, if said witch were somehow turning into a human-sized tower of souring milk. The men tried to suppress their laughter. Alice snarled, pointing her finger at a hose line in the corner, the same tool that'd been used to convert the side-yard into a swamp. "Wash me!" she commanded.

This, too, the men complied with. Jernigan grabbed ahold of the nozzle while Unger operated the valves. Alice crossed her arms and tapped her foot irritably. "What's taking so long?! Darn you, move it!"

And before she knew it, she got her wish. A powerful torrent of water blasted her in the face, so strong that it threatened to knock her back into the gunge tub for a second helping. She leaned into the unrelenting stream with her hands as though to block it, but the flow could not be stemmed. She turned around, positioning her back to the spray. Yet, her actions only provided the hose with a different target. The water now shot at the woman's ass like a bidet in full throttle. She squealed. Her injured bum hadn't been prepared for a shower of this sort. Even worse, at the alarming rate that it filled into the hole in her pants, the water began inflating her onesie. She was being transformed into a giant balloon!

She hollered in outrage. "What are you doing?! Shut it off!"

"Wha –– ?! What was that?!" The men could scarcely hear anything over the roar of water.

"I said shut it off, you dunce! Shut it off!"

Unger fiddled with the faucet until the gush tapered off. When the impromptu bath finished, the cat burglar shivered, utterly drenched from head to toe. All the accumulated water inside her ski-suit spilled out through every available opening until the outfit itself reverted to a deflated state. Of course, this didn't mean she sparkled unblemished. The same crap-colored splotches that encrusted her visage still stained the fabric of her winter garb. In addition, much to the amusement of her two male associates, Alice's clothes started to shrivel up and shrink. The ruined onesie clung tighter to her fabulous body, emphasizing her breasts, legs, and pussy more so than ever before. The men could even discern the vague silhouette of the woman's camel-toe, the protruding outline of her cute, puffy nipples. And, while they chortled lustily, the fallen femme brushed back the wet tangle of hair that'd been plastered across her face, revealing an expression of unmatched vexation.

In no mood for banter, she stomped forward, swiped Jernigan's Glock, and ascended the basement stairwell. The men lagged behind her, blessed with a view of their lady superior's jiggling rear – a view made more appetizing by the near transparency of her soggy, half-torn panties.

Upon arriving at the foyer, Alice surveyed the area with shifty eyes. Peace suffused the air. No signs of the Pruitt boy betrayed themselves. She glanced over to her collaborators – Unger readied with his automatic rifle; Jernigan armed with a frying pan – and she whispered. "Here's the plan. You two search the living room. I'll check the kitchen. Engage with utmost prejudice. I want him dead."

Thus, the trio split up. The besmirched belle crept towards the kitchen door which had been left slightly ajar. Her suspicions were raised. She peeked in ever so carefully. Then, straightaway, something caught her attention.

Small build, plaid shirt, baggy jeans…. How fortunate, she imagined to herself. She'd finally located the wretched imp! Revenge preoccupied her thoughts. Alerting Unger and Jernigan wasn't an option she was willing to consider. No way. Not now. She yearned to make the kid sorry first for what he'd put her through, and she wanted to savor it alone, wanted to deliver the killing stroke herself. A few minutes – that's all she needed. So, without hesitation, Alice kicked the door and rushed inside, brandishing her gun.

"It's game over, kid. Welcome to payback!"

Unbeknownst to her, however, Alex had just moments ago set a pail above the partly open door. As soon as she barged in, the pail dropped from its roost and landed upside down over her head. _Bong!_ The world quickly disappeared from the thief's line of vision. She couldn't see! She struggled to pry the irksome object off. But despite her best efforts, it refused to budge. There was something in the pail, something sticky. The contents seeped into her hair then trailed all the way down her scalp, neck, and forehead, ensnaring her. "What is this?! Gwarrrrgh! Why can't I get it off?!" she yelled in a panic, her cries muffled by galvanized steel. Was it some brand of rubber cement? Unthinkable! It couldn't be. Not with that… sugary scent. Then, suddenly, the truth dawned on her. "Honey?!"

"Bingo!" Alex remarked, clapping his hands. "Vengeance is sweet, isn't it? Had enough yet?"

Alice lost her temper. Abandoning logic, foaming at the mouth, she charged blindly at the Pruitt boy. "Raaaawrghh! I'm gonna' break every bone in your body!"

The kid grinned. "Wrong answer." And with impeccable marksmanship, he tossed two large pies at the evil woman, one for each of her wonderful tits – blueberry on the right, raspberry on the left. The pastries ruptured upon contact, further smearing the front of her outfit, while the aluminum pans hung on like the two oversized cups of a metallic bra. Yet, this didn't put an end to her offensive. The bucket-headed juggernaut advanced, primed to tackle her most hated enemy. Alex, though, remained undaunted. He had more tricks up his sleeve. He knew, for one, which portions of the floor had been earlier polished with olive oil and which areas were safe to cross; information which Alice wasn't privy to.

Unsurprisingly, the oil worked its magic. Alice slipped, dove onto her belly, and found herself gliding across the lubricated tiles. Flapping her arms, shrieking, she had no control whatsoever of where she was going. The kid dodged her with ease then snuck off, but the lady thief sustained her disastrous trajectory. In no time flat, she rammed right into the Pruitts' refrigerator. _Clang!_

The pail on her head rattled. The ruckus from the collision reverberated inside her skull like the incessant toll of Christmas bells, leaving her jaws chattering and her eyes spinning wildly in their sockets. Worse, her boobs smarted badly, squished as they were against both the floor and the two pie plates. She gritted her teeth, tried to drag herself off the ground, tried to focus.

Groping along the kitchenette, the villainess set her trembling fingers on the oven. She firmly grasped the handle and tugged, thinking it would support her weight. Instead, the oven door came crashing down. _Gong!_ The double whammy scrambled her already disoriented senses. And sheer anger alone kept her from fainting. Luckily, her next attempt proved more successful than the last. She rose, scaling up the adjacent dinner table, hugging onto one of its legs, koala-style. She then propped her ass against the table's side, careful not to harm the mistreated meat on those shapely buns.

With balance restored, she set about removing the pail. "Aaaarrrggghhh! Just you wait, you little maggot! You're doomed when I get out of this! Doomed!"

The woman pulled and pulled, feeling all throughout as though her head were being ripped off. She couldn't tell how much more of this slapstick she could endure before going insane. Then, with one last frenzied jerk, Alice finally extracted the pail.

No declarations of triumph were made; no jubilant ego-tripping ovations spoken. Rather, a rough tearing sound, like that of countless strings being plucked at once, or (better yet) like that of countless hairs being simultaneously wrenched from their roots, accompanied the act. "Eeeeeeeooooooowww! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! H-hu-hu-hurts!" The wicked woman screamed until she grew hoarse. And although she once believed profanities to be absolutely beneath someone as elegant and as intelligent as herself, she now spouted the basest repertoire of cuss words conceivable. So intensely did the pain flare across her scalp. It even dared rival the soreness which plagued her big reddened butt.

The full extent of the damage eluded her at this moment, however. Changing her position, she bowed her aching head, hunched her stiff shoulders, and planted her palms down on the tabletop, her broken nails digging into the wood in a bid to steady her tired self. That's when she saw "it". The beastly image greeted Alice the way a frightful spectre or hallucination might haunt a troubled sleeper.

At first, she failed to recognize the shaven, muck-splattered creature floating before her. She blinked, and the apparition with its clueless expression did the exact same, flawlessly aping her every move. Shortly thereafter, the cruel realization hit home. She was staring at her own reflection!

"No! No! No! Noooooooooooo! Not my hair! My precious hair!"

Chaos reigned over the dome of her noggin. The mirror Alex had left there on the table showed every surreal detail. The woman's short brunette hair had been reduced to some uneven patches of stubble and some ugly, weed-like tufts which jutted out here and there in total disarray. Most prominent of all, though, were the very large, very visible bald spots that dominated her pate. The pride and joy of her femininity had been wrecked beyond repair! Years of meticulous care… wasted!

Alice almost wept. She lamented the loss of her fashionable coiffure, blaming everything squarely on the accursed brat. It'd take forever, she just knew it, before she'd be able to mingle in high society without resorting to some silly toupée. He'd condemned her to this. And, to top it all off, the kid had arranged one more insult for her – a note taped on the far edge of the mirror. It read in bold letters, "you're welcome!" Naturally, the conquered cat burglar recoiled from the sight. She backed away from the mirror, away from the support offered by the table. And in doing so, she'd committed another blunder: she'd forgotten all about the carpet of oil underneath! In an instant, Alice's foot slid. The humiliated babe collapsed onto her back with so much force that the whole kitchen quaked.

Cupboards flung open overhead, raining down trays, ladles, pots and pans and other cooking implements upon the thief. She released a prissy yelp, only to have a plastic funnel pop right into her mouth, quieting her gorgeous lips.

From there, the mishaps further escalated. Alice's eyes bulged, positively horrified, for incoming was the pièce de résistance. A tall gurgling stockpot, perturbed during the barrage, whirled drunkenly on its place on the stove. Alice held her breath, hoping against hope to be spared. Then… catastrophe! The stockpot toppled over to its side, causing its warm cache of baked beans to come cascading down. And, as the beans poured out, the funnel was there to capture every last ounce of them.

There was no stopping it. Like a stampede of angry bulls racing off a cliff, the beans forced their way down her throat and into her stomach. She could feel her insides swelling, expanding, until her guts were full to bursting. There was just so much! Grunting and groaning, Alice attempted to wriggle away, but it was hopeless. Each time she exerted herself in this direction or that, the absence of any friction between herself and the floor impeded all progress. Her actions merely caused the most hysterical squeaking as her curvy ass flopped numerous times against the ground. She couldn't remove the funnel either, or else she'd risk receiving a faceful of the thick, pasty beans instead. By the end of it, despite having struggled to the very last, the woman had consumed (against her will) over an entire gallon of the stuff.

Frantically, she tore off the funnel then, surprising herself, unleashed the mightiest burp ever imaginable. It was a most unladylike display, and loud enough to alert Unger and Jernigan who were all the way on the other side of the house; the men immediately rushed to the source of the disturbance. Though, upon seeing their lady superior, bald, beaten, a slight paunch to her once perfectly flat tummy, they erupted again into uproarious guffaws. Of course, they aided Alice to her feet. But now, no number of threats could possibly shut them up.

"Grrrrr…. Are you deaf?! Quit laughing! Quit it! Now tell me. Where is he?! Where?!"

"Hoohoohahahihihi! Well, kid's not in the living room," Unger replied, tears in his mocking eyes.

"Yes. Hehehe... All clear," Jernigan concurred in between bouts of chuckling.

"Liars! I won't believe it," Alice hissed. "The brat was just here! He couldn't have gone far…. You dolts must've let him pass you by! How absolutely incompetent, both of you… ooh! Uh… urk?!" As she reproached her cohorts, however, a sharp twinge in her abdomen interrupted her. The thief doubled over. Her stomach churned. It seemed that her innards, so used to the disciplined diet which she so strictly imposed upon herself, could not properly process that last intake of high calorie, super gassy goodness. She felt as if, at any moment now, she would release the beast. Mind and body were already at total war, the former fighting to preserve even the tiniest shred of dignity, the latter begging for relief.

Alice needed to end this siege fast (or at least find a toilet far away from these alleged allies of hers). So, clutching her stomach and squeezing together her ass cheeks as tight as they could go, she hobbled out of the kitchen then into the living room alone. There, she had a veritable tantrum. The woman struck chairs, flipped tables, and overturned whatever else obstructed her path.

Again, again, and again – nothing! She'd begun to get jittery. Skipping in place from one foot to another, the pressure building up inside her bowels, Alice wondered impatiently where the kid had gone. It simply couldn't be that Unger and Jernigan were telling the truth. She'd never admit it. To revoke her judgment, to retract it by returning there empty-handed, would be the closest thing to conceding that those buffoons were smarter than her, better than her…. No! She couldn't bring herself to. Not in a hundred million years! And yet, what was with all this doubt, this lingering uncertainty? The cat burglar shivered. Her guts rumbled like distant thunderclouds. It was in that small window of opportunity that an unseen force suddenly hammered down on her unguarded big toe.

 _Whaaam! *Prrrrft!*_

"Gaaah! Oh! N-noooo… nghh!" As the attack curtailed the woman's defenses, a tiny spurt of flatulence had managed to slip from out of her puckered bunghole. Instinctively, Alice clamped her big arse shut. She reasserted control. Though, for how much longer, she didn't know. What she did know was that the most recent blow to her person had originated nearby – under the sofa!

She should've guessed. It seemed so very obvious in hindsight. Thus, ignoring her pains, resisting with every fiber of her being the terrible urge to fart, the felonious female knelt down, got onto her belly, and crawled right into that dark, cramped space.

Dust bunnies populated the underside of the sofa, along with discarded paper clips and old bits of chewing gum. The Pruitts' superficial take on middle-class hygiene was all too apparent. But more than that, what really annoyed Alice was the angelic smile of her adversary as he lounged there in the shadows. "Hi," Alex greeted her, waving what looked like a monkey wrench. "I love the haircut. It's bold and brash. Really, really suits you. Wouldn't you agree, Ms Ribbons?"

This reminder of her newfound baldness stung her ego. Alice glared daggers at the boy, keen on a retort. "You… you think you've put me in my place, huh? That you've ruined me? Me?! Hah! Don't count on it. After this, I'll be purchasing my own personal French villa, regrowing all my hair, and hiring an expert dietician…. I'll undo everything you've done to me today! Just watch, kid. I'll bounce back. I'll be better than ever. But, you sure as heck won't. You won't even live long enough to say your pitiful farewells to your worthless family. Not to your mother, your father, your brother, or your sister!"

"Hmm. Nice speech. Do you have a secret team of script doctors writing this junk behind the scenes, or are you really this good at clichéd super-villain monologues? I'm impressed."

"Arghh! Eat shit and die!"

Possessed by the most savage impulses, the thief lunged forward. Her outstretched arm reached for the kid. Yet, Alex didn't bother to evade. Without even flinching, he sat on his haunches and beamed at the callous woman before him. Alice paused. Then it occurred to her. This was exactly like that humiliation she bore earlier at the airport! Something was holding her back, keeping her fingertips just a few inches away from her prey. But what? The answer astonished her. For while the interior of the sofa bottom was cavernous, the entrance proved to be far narrower, too narrow in fact to allow her sumptuous ass through. She had miscalculated! Her greatest asset had become a gigantic liability! Repeatedly, she reasoned with herself that it wasn't fair. She was so damned close! Still, the fun was just about getting started.

Alex accorded his prisoner no sympathy. He promptly handcuffed her wrists to the hind legs of the sofa, spreading her arms wide apart. Alice was petrified. The blood drained from her face. She didn't care to learn what this child had in store for her. And though she truly loathed it, she understood that she had to make recourse to more urgent measures. She had to call for reinforcements. "Unger! Jernig – urk! Mmph!"

Unfortunately, Alex pre-empted her there too. In a flash, he crammed a pair of his brother's soiled undies into the villainous vixen's inviting mouth. Alice gagged. It tasted like greasy Big Macs and rancid sweat.

"Bon appétit. Enjoy your skid marks," the boy scoffed.

He reckoned this would shatter his captive's spirit. However, he couldn't have been more mistaken. Alice's marred patrician features contorted into a scowl. Regardless of her ensnarement… or, more likely because of it, she continued to radiate a fiery defiance. Alex thought it bizarre, but every ploy he sent her way seemed only to push the stubborn woman further, to make her angrier and therefore less willing to surrender. She was an incredibly tough nut to crack. He had to raise the ante.

"Awwww… You don't look too happy. Is it the haircut? It's the haircut, isn't it? Well, cheer up, cue ball. I can fix it. No worries." At that, Alex produced a neon pink wig and a jar of wallpaper paste. He dumped the colorless solution on the woman's scalp, then affixed the wig there, pressing down firmly.

The next phase in Alice's makeover was underway. She shook her head with all the ferocity of a caged animal, but to no avail. The kitschy wig latched on as tenaciously as any bucket of glue or honey ever did. A fringe of blunt bangs now enveloped her brows. Artificial curls and ringlets dangled over her ears and over the nape of her neck, their plastic sheen glittering like so much fairy dust. It was a truly spectacular metamorphosis to behold. Like a Lalaloopsy doll being toyed with by some rambunctious youngster, she'd been forced to trade in her short and sleek hair-style for the "bold and brash" semi-baldness of so many punk-rock rejects. Then, that too was replaced with this ridiculously infantile princess cut.

Alex congratulated himself on a job well-done. "Courtesy of the Pruitt Home's Salon & Spa! Mud baths, manicures, haircuts, and everything else in between. Do visit us again!"

He then scurried out from under the sofa, whereupon he was greeted by the thief's big, beautiful booty. This predictably gave him an idea. Rummaging through Alice's utility belt, the young rogue snatched her combat knife, and – with several quick motions – detached the lower half of her onesie from its upper half, effectively pantsing her.

"Mmmph! Mph! Nmm! Hmmph!"

Alice's eyes darted left and right. Dread surged through her. Her heartbeat raced. The cold draft sweeping over her legs told her that, muddy socks and charred panties aside, she'd been stripped naked from the waist down… by a damned ten year-old no less! She tugged at her handcuffs. Metal clinked on metal. But it was pointless. The whole universe had gone topsy-turvy. And what should've been a cakewalk had devolved into a garish hell-on-earth scenario. It felt so wrong, so absurd. She was an adult for god's sake! An adult! This twerp should've been at her mercy. Not the other way around!

Denial, though, did her no favors here. Alex ultimately settled upon the most diabolic of punishments, one that would leave its psychological mark and reinforce the shocking reversal of roles. He lifted his hand high over his head, then let it fly, vigorously smacking the burglar's right buttock with enough power to knock the wind out of her proverbial sails.

 _Whack! *Bbrrrraaaapp!*_

"Errrmph! Urgh! Grrrmmph! Nnnuuuuuuuh!" Alice jolted.

Like a pig taken to the slaughter, she squealed as her sphincter loosened and a boisterous fart issued forth from her tormented tailpipe. She clenched her buns again. Yet, another slap ruined her concentration.

 _Whack! *Blaaaaaarrrrrrrrt!*_

"Oof! Huuurrrrghh! Shtrrrphh! Shtrrrrrphhhh!"

"Hush!" Alex scolded. "I didn't want it to come to this. But I've seen your record, your inner ugliness, your every bad deed this past week. And I have to say… you're long overdue for a lesson in discipline. You yourself asked for this. So, suck it up, blubber butt! Suck it up and think about all you've done!"

"Urgh-ughhhh! Rrrrrnnghh!" Karmic justice descended upon the naughty girl, raining down in a flurry of swats. Each spank caused her plump, juicy posterior to jiggle. Each impact caused her to fart. The pent-up pressure in her gut exploded into an atonal concerto of anal audio. The kid pinched his nose to keep from sniffing the stench. For her part, though, Alice could only bask in the stupefying fumes. She struggled against her restraints, writhed in them, unable to comprehend the futility of it all.

"This is for stealing the Axus microchip!"

 _Whack! *Blrrrrrrp!*_

Of course, it didn't help that the brat proceeded to enumerate her most recent sins, one by one.

"This is for kidnapping the neighbor's Labrador!"

 _Whack! *Phhhhrrrrrrrrt!*_

Nor did it help that he seemed obsessed with flattening the seductive curve of her ass, with tattooing the stark outline of his open palm all across her defenseless derriere.

"This is for harming an elderly widow!"

 _Whack! *Floooorrrrrp!*_

Her voluptuous rump roasted with a generous seasoning of shame sprinkled on top.

"This is for trespassing on private property!"

 _Whack! *Brrrrrrrraaaaaaaaap!*_

And – wow! – was it overkill. The accumulated agony of pitchforks, rockets, and wasp stings returned to haunt the thief, compounded as these past humiliations were by the spankings she now received.

"This is for threatening to kill me! An innocent minor!"

 _Whack! *Blorrrrrpfffrrrrttt!*_

Every muscle in her body soon went rigid, save for those around her rebellious rectal area. She bucked and quivered under the blows, involuntarily rolling her tush as if fucking the floor, as if edging towards a maddeningly turbulent orgasm.

"Oh yeah! And these are for all those other crimes I may have overlooked!"

 _Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!_

The haze of her own stink was set to suffocate her. That is, if she didn't blackout first from the kid's pummeling of her backside. The very ordeal tested the limits of her conceit. More swats ensued, increasing in speed and strength until they resembled the rounds of a fully-loaded machine gun. Would she stay conscious, would she retain that last shred of dignity she so treasured, or would she start sobbing like a blubbering baby bitch? Only one real choice presented itself. Certainly, she didn't get this far in her career for no reason. She was a professional! She braced her loins and grappled with her tear ducts, determined not to cry. It was the very least she could strive for. No sniffles. No boo-hoos.

Alex had to give her some credit. "Tough" didn't even begin to describe her unique brand of obstinacy. Nevertheless, he wasn't going to forfeit either. Employing both of his hands this time, he spanked his human whoopee cushion with added fervor, treating her twin summits no better than he would a couple of bongo drums.

 _Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!_

"Graaaaawrrrrrrrrrr! Aaaaaarrrrrggghhh!"

Mustering as much resolve as she could, Alice weathered this new wave of lickings. It drained her energy, whittled her stamina. And, still, the desire for self-preservation prevailed. She winced. Teardrops welled in her misty eyes. She chewed hard on the unwashed pair of briefs. But she didn't cry!

Then, without any notice, the spanks tapered off until they reached an abrupt halt.

Alice rejoiced. Expelling one final poot, she moaned in relief and allowed her body to go limp. By now, her butt cheeks glowed bright scarlet. She was going to have trouble sitting down over the next few days. But she hadn't cried! She didn't yield! In fact, as far as she was concerned, it was Alex who'd capitulated to her indomitable willpower. The tenacity of her ass outlasted the firmness of his hand. It didn't even dawn on the woman how pathetic it was that she relied on the pettiest of reasons to vindicate her hubris, that she depended on the most ludicrous of rationales to maintain her delusions of superiority.

Juvenile as it was, Alice experienced a comforting euphoria at this "accomplishment". Her standards had strayed from her erstwhile perfectionism. And although she hadn't yet hit rock bottom, she was indeed plummeting towards a nadir from which there could be no rescue.

Identity crises of this caliber rarely led to happy endings.

Sure enough, she'd misinterpreted the boy's motives. He hadn't surrendered. That would be foolish given his current advantage. Rather, a much more compelling prank had engrossed his mischievous mind.

Fetching his dad's fishing gear, Alex assumed the appropriate angling stance. He drew back the rod then cast it forward with a flourish. The line flew over the stationary ceiling fan, traversed the span of the room, and docked at its destination, snagging Alice's purple panties by the waistband.

Alex snickered. The villainess remained oblivious, but she wouldn't be for too long. Eagerly, he reeled in his whopper of a catch. And the momentary lull receded. Alice croaked in sublime anguish as her panties were yanked all the way up her ass. She felt the expensive silk rubbing against her nether region, felt it crushing her cooch and cleaving her crack. Her jaw fell agape; her lower lip trembled. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs.

"Gaah-gaaaawwwwddd! Mmmmphh eeehhtth shtrrrrrpppphhh!"

Her sprightly nemesis, though, persisted. Heedless of her muffled pleas, he was going to make her remember this – a wedgie worthy of the history books! Thus, steering the rod and line as if they constituted two parts of an improvised crane, Alex maneuvered the woman's knickers onto the ceiling fan, inserted one of four rotor blades through the super-stretched leg-holes, then left the undies there to drape. Alice shuddered. While the seat of her panties had been hooked several meters above her bum, she had yet to free herself from her initial bondage to the Pruitts' sofa. The result was a delicate standstill between two separate forces, both pulling in opposite directions. It warped her bikini, distorted it into a veritable thong. She feared she was going to be split in half. Perhaps lengthwise, perhaps crosswise.

Now, Alex decided, was time to lay the finishing touches. Twisting a dial on the wall, he activated the ceiling fan at maximum velocity. He padded out the threshold, but not before he saluted his handiwork. "Bon voyage! Sayonara! Goodbye… and good riddance!"


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Alex padded out of the living room, satisfied with the thought of Alice's impending ruin.

The rotor blades came to life. The fan spun slowly at first, then it began to take on speed, growing faster after each rotation. Soon, it was a dizzying blur on the ceiling, whirring and whirring, circling and circling, like some crazed propeller.

Alice felt the wedgie tighten exponentially. Her panties dug deeper into her crack, wreaking havoc on her gorgeous glutes. And worse, the back of the super-stretched lingerie twisted with every turn of the fan. The thin strip of fabric between her thighs could hardly be called a "thong" now. Rather, the villainess looked as though she were clad in a sumo wrestler's hideous fundoshi. It was just too ridiculous. How she even remained stuck in such an embarrassing predicament for so long without a plan… she hadn't a clue. Breaking free was obviously the top priority. She reminded herself of that. But, at this point, she was honestly stumped. Nothing in her training could've prepared her for this… wedgie-bondage combo!

Her nerves had been hogtied into knots. Her throat constricted. The tension in her muscles mounted as the strain only increased. Likewise, the handcuffs which held the wicked woman down had neared their own limits. It wouldn't take much more for the whole set-up to come crashing.

 _Clink!_

And that is precisely what happened.

The chain-link on her handcuffs broke. And, immediately, Alice found herself dragged out from under the sofa, then hoisted up into the air by her fancy panties.

"Mmmmmmppppphhhhhhh!" The fan spun her round and round. All the while, her undies bounced her up and down, up and down, grinding against her womanhood and giving her the most brutal butt flossing imaginable. One would've guessed that a bungee cord had been strapped around Alice's big, jiggling bum. It made her dance a high-flying parody of the sugar plum fairy dance, made her toes curl, made her nearly swallow the grubby pair of briefs still gagging her mouth. So sharp, so sudden, so shameless was the pain. The lovely cleft of her anus shuddered in sheer agony. And her pussy followed suit. Clutching her crotch, a laughable expression on her grimy face, Alice emitted a colorful range of dismal groans.

Was it possible for a single wedgie to break the space-time continuum, or suspend the laws of physics? From her perspective, that appeared very much the case. Seconds seemed to pass like minutes; minutes melted away like hours. But, before long, the telltale sound of popping threads punctuated the mayhem.

Pulled to ten times its original size, the wiry waistband of her panties finally burst under the stress. Everything from the front and back exploded into a hundred shredded bits and pieces.

On her part, Alice hadn't a chance to curse her rotten luck. Upon release, the centripetal force from the carousel ride catapulted her across the living room. The thief soared, a rain of panty-confetti trailing right behind her. That is, at least, until she collided with a nearby wall. _Baaaaaam!_ And there, she stuck awhile, her limbs spread eagle, her naked ass and pussy bared for all to see, before she slid slowly down to the ground, haggard yet undoubtedly conscious.

God, she hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated that shit-awful little brat!

Removing her mouth-gag, forcing herself to stand, she noted the terrible tingling betwixt her buns. Chunks of torn fabric remained scrunched up within the valley of her ass, crammed into those secret depths she hardly knew existed. She tried to excavate them, of course. She kept at it repeatedly. However, they were too far gone. At the end, she gave up on this absurd exercise, and went off to regroup with her cohorts – a difficult task in its own blighted way. The long, athletic legs she took such enormous pride in felt as heavy as lead. Her once confident stride had been reduced to an infantile waddle.

It was itself a struggle to move forward. And, when she discovered Unger and Jernigan still in the kitchen, she thought she would genuinely die from anger. The dimwitted duo sat by the Pruitts' dinner table, munching on a large Christmas spread raided from the fridge, guzzling wine and beer and whatever alcoholic drinks they'd been able to scrounge. "Buffoons!"

That got their attention. Both men paused, looked towards their lady superior, then returned to their feast without giving her another glance.

"You got a haircut… again?" Jernigan inquired, pointing to the woman's neon pink wig.

"More importantly," Unger added. "What happened to your pants? Did shorty steal them as a souvenir?"

Alice dismissed their jibes. "Shut up! I'm asking the questions here! So, where the heck were you idiots?! Didn't you hear me?! I needed back-up! B-A-C-K-U-P! The damned chip could've been ours! Have you twits forgotten about the mission?! The contract?! The money?!"

"Meh," Unger retorted, taking a swig of Heineken. "We heard you fine the first time. Didn't care to slow you down, though. After all, we're 'slack-jawed neanderthals'. Remember? We'd just muck up the whole operation. Best to leave it to the self-styled professionals, if you get what I mean. Heheheheh."

Such mutiny! Such insubordination! Alice seethed. So much so perhaps that her trembling rump almost busted a blood vessel. She could put these imbeciles out of their misery without effort. It'd be all too easy to pop a bullet into each of their empty noggins. Nevertheless, she figured that they might possess some lingering utility. A delightfully devilish idea occurred to her. The disheveled femme's mood lightened. Then, smiling coldly, she drew out the pistol she'd previously seized from Jernigan, aimed, and shot it.

 _Bang!_

Less than an instant later, Unger howled. The beer bottle in his hand had shattered into a hail of shards, injuring him. "Fuckin' crazy bitch! Fuck! Mangled my hand! My fuckin' good hand! Now, how am I – ?!"

"Supposed to wield a gun, Mr Unger? Short answer – you won't. And I don't expect you to," Alice cooed, her tone suffused with sadistic glee. "Same goes for Mr Jernigan, really."

The mere mention of his name made the tech expert's blood freeze.

"Fortunately, he doesn't have an M16," Alice added as she snatched Unger's assault rifle from its position on the table. "I hope we understand each other... better. Rest assured, boys, this is nothing personal. Shall we get back to business?"

Jernigan nodded. Unger glared. Both were silent.

"Learning fast, I see. That's adorable. I believe you dolts are just about ready for your new assignments. Let's start with you, Mr Jernigan. I need you to hop on down to the basement and fetch me a fresh change of clothes. A pantsuit will do. Ideally, one that's been washed, dried, and ironed." At that, Jernigan rushed out of the kitchen. Alice was pleased. She next set her sights on Unger, and the rugged mercenary gulped. "As for you, Mr Unger, I have a very special task in store. Follow me."

The villainess signaled for Unger to walk. Cradling his wounded hand, staring at the barrel of Alice's gun, Unger shuffled along until they reached the foyer.

A staircase leading up to the second floor greeted them, outwardly normal, except for one nasty detail. Each tread, each level had been sprinkled liberally with thumb tacks! The tiny barbs twinkled menacingly, waiting for some unsuspecting victim.

Unger already anticipated the upcoming command. "You want me to climb this, huh?"

"Exactly."

"I'll go find a broom. Sweep 'em away."

Quickly, Alice cocked her pistol. "Oh no, Mr Unger. Not on my watch. Allow me to tell you what you're going to do instead. First, you're going to take off your boots. Then, you're going to march up those stairs. Is that clear enough, or do I have to further clarify my statement for that primitive pea brain of yours?"

There was no use arguing. Reluctantly, Earl Unger did as he was told. He ditched his boots, discarded his socks, and, steeling himself, took the most excruciating step he'd ever experienced. "Aaaaaaaaaaarrrgh!" Half a dozen spikes pierced his right foot. "Yaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh!" Many more stabbed his left. And the numbers only increased as he advanced. It spurred him on, drove him into full sprint, like a dog savagely electrified. Then, it was over. Arriving at the top, the huge man flopped onto his back, gripping his soles, growling impotently. "Graaawr! You psycho! You hag! You dirty skank! I'll kill you, damn it!"

"Hmm…. Sweet music to my ears," Alice remarked. It thrilled her to behold her new tactics bearing fruit. Moreover, Unger's charming spectacle of torment proved a welcome bonus.

Subsequently, Jernigan resurfaced from the basement, carrying a stack of garments.

Alice bade him closer. She rummaged through the pile, inspected it, scrutinized everything.

"Wha… what is this?"

Jernigan hesitated. "I… I couldn't locate a… a pantsuit. This was all they had."

"…!"

"Uh…. Please… please don't hurt me…."

Puzzlement devolved into disgust. The inexplicable mishmash of outfits which Jernigan had scavenged amounted to no more than an insult to high fashion and good taste. Alice grew ballistic. The despicable dame ranted and raved. "A joke! This has to be a joke! Look, Mr Jernigan. Explain to me. What is this?! A ballerina tutu, a leather jacket, a pair of weather-beaten galoshes, and… Hello Kitty panties? Seriously? Hello Kitty panties?! Do I look like a total moron to you? Do I look like a clown?!"

The man couldn't respond. All things considered, Alice certainly did look like a total moron and a clown. Mud smeared her face and caked the tatters of her snowsuit. Frazzled pink princess curls sprouted where, mere minutes ago, he recalled there being only stubble. Plus, she was nude from the waist down, save for a sagging utility belt which hid her feminine privies. Of course, it failed to cover the glowing red flesh of her ultra-conspicuous butt. And that wasn't the half of it. He registered the cracked nails, the bizarre limp, the odor of baked beans wafting about her…. All a far cry from the seductive ice queen that'd dominated their fantasies – both his and Unger's. Jernigan chewed his lip.

"Ugh! You're hopeless!" Alice stomped, fed-up. "Join Unger upstairs, and help that hyena onto his feet. We're not done here. Go! Hurry!"

"Y-yes, ma'am!"

Alice sighed. Right when she was beginning to feel in control again, circumstances sought to demean her and belittle her victories. She scowled at Jernigan's retreating form, then – alone at last – she undressed, shedding off her filthy old rags, trading them in for the new ones. "Grrrrr…. This'll chafe…."

Sure enough, she judged correctly. The baby-pink panties fit a breadth too snug. The elastics squeezed her adult hips, strangled the flow of oxygen to her head and chest. From behind, much of the cottony material had vanished into her massive bubble butt. In front, the panties had bunched up into her cooch, forming a distinct camel-toe, above which hung an image of the eponymous cartoon character with its sugary logo. Hello Kitty, indeed! It was obscene. A blatant signpost advertising her cunt to the whole wide world. And, to compound this humiliation, the tutu was much too short. Its frills and ruffles concealed nothing whilst displaying everything. Moreover, these embellishments rustled at the slightest motion, and rustled even louder now that the oversized galoshes made her clumsy gait even clumsier.

It didn't matter, though. Not at this stage anyway. The kid had fewer and fewer places to go to. And, besides that, her ingenious shift in strategy offered a revived glimpse of success. Triumph was, again, within her grasp. She savored the notion, relished it as she ascended the stairs up to the second floor.

Jernigan didn't dare laugh at her mismatched ensemble. Unger, his feet sore, nearly quipped about how she'd blend in well with a circus, but stopped himself, thinking it best to hold his tongue.

Alice surveyed the hall. There were six doors, six potential hideouts, and each needed to be searched.

She smirked. "Mr Jernigan, I count a total of six doors. Won't you be a dear and check the first?"

Clearly, fear overwhelmed logic. Burton Jernigan obeyed. And, as soon as he opened the door, he learned that the room behind was in actuality a linen closet. He also learned that it contained a spring-powered boxing glove which hurtled forward, pulverizing his unguarded nuts.

 _Bam! *Crrruuuunchhhh!*_

The man fell to his knees then let loose a falsetto scream.

He would never ever have brats of his own. Likewise, his voice would forever leap eight octaves higher. Yet, these were the least of his worries. Five doors remained, all rigged with booby traps, and Alice wasn't quite finished with them.

Not by a longshot.

Thus, a hitherto unknown dimension of suffering foisted itself upon the two lackeys.

Door number two led to the parents' room. And, there, a crazed parrot pecked at Unger's eye.

Door number three led to the older brother's room. And, there, a blowtorch incinerated Jernigan's hair.

Door number four led to Alex's room. And, there, a tennis ball launcher smashed a few ribs from both.

All throughout, Alice giggled, mocking them from a safe distance, delivering snide side-comments that no self-respecting person would have ever endured except under extreme duress. Unger and Jernigan emerged from the ordeal battered and bruised. The former simmered with loathing; the latter gaped vacantly into the void, sapped of strength. Together, they lay exhausted on the ground, panting, wheezing, as their lady superior goaded them on.

"How are my favorite meat shields doing? Burned out? Bushed? Beat up? Well… that's too bad! Because I don't remember giving any of you permission to nap! So, move!"

Unger nudged his partner with his elbow. "Mr Jernigan, I think that's your cue. Do me a solid, eh?"

Eyes twitching, jaws chattering, unable to speak, the traumatized tech expert slowly rose. Like a zombie, he lurched towards the fifth door and, bracing himself, twisted the knob. Luckily, no bombs detonated, no alarms sounded, and no tripwires were triggered. He wiped the sweat off his brow, exhaled, then peered inside. It was the older sister's room. And there on the bed, beneath a mound of blankets, something seemed to be crouching, cowering, afraid. He wasn't sure what it was. But, its shape was human, and it was no larger than a child. Jernigan informed his comrades. "A-Alice, you have to see this."

The evil woman waddled over. She snarled. "Could it be?! The kid!"

"Wh-what do we do?"

Alice handed him a hockey stick. "Bash him."

"Bash him?" The mental picture made Jernigan nervous.

"Yes! I don't care if he's an eight year-old. After everything he's put me through, he deserves hell!"

"Maybe we shouldn't be so…."

"Soft! You've gone soft! I can't believe I'm surrounded by such spineless wimps! Ugh, fine. Pick! Either you crush him, or I do the same to you! Does that ease your sorry excuse for a conscience, Mr Jernigan?"

Jernigan was cornered. As shrill as her heart was black and cruel, Alice didn't leave him much of a choice. The man cautiously approached the side of the bed. He shut his eyes, lifted the improvised weapon, then brought it down hard, bludgeoning his target. The results would baffle them.

 _Whaaaam! *Peeeeeeeeep~* "Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! I love you!"_

Flunky and superior were mutually taken aback. There should've been a meaty cacophony of fractured bones, perforated organs, and wrecked ligaments. Not a robotic Valentine's Day message! Shoving poor Jernigan away, Alice ripped off the sheets and exposed the anonymous figure – a stuffed gorilla doll.

They'd been royally duped. Alice gnashed her teeth. "Nobody makes a monkey out of me!"

Outside in the corridor, Unger chortled rebelliously. "He already has, and he's upping the ante!"

"Grrr…. What are you blabbering about, you simpleton?!"

He gestured at her bulky leather jacket. "On your shoulder, pumpkin. A brief discomfort."

In annoyance, Alice's frown intensified. She turned her head and rapidly froze. Terror hit her like a truck, because clasping onto her, staring with its beady eyes, was her worst nightmare, here materialized in all its fuzzy horror. It was a giant… white… rat! The largest she'd ever seen! Up close. Personal. Far too personal. Violating her space. Unclean. Virulent. Diseased. Spreading its germs! Alice went pale. Tremors wracked her voluptuous body, and her tutu shook audibly in concert. The world ceased to exist. The boy… the microchip… the cash… everything blipped out of her mind's periphery. Everything that is, except for herself and the rat, life and death. _Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!_

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!" The femme fatale freaked. She leapt back, flung her arms up, emitting a girly squeal. Consequently, the shocked rodent was tossed into the air. It did a mini somersault, and dove downwards into Alice's top, lodging itself between her cleavage. "Aaaaiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Skilled acrobat that it was, the rat then scuttled about in the dark of the leather jacket, heightening the cat burglar's panic. Alice slapped herself over and over, but every slap was deftly evaded. She could sense the hairless claws groping her breasts, her stomach, her armpits, her back, her spine. The rat's fur tickled her skin and sent across shudders of revulsion in equal measure. When it became evident that smacking her own tits silly had zero effect, she began spinning and twirling, hopping here and there as though she were a mad prima ballerina on steroids. This did the job.

The rat lost its grip. It fell out of the woman's jacket and onto her skirt, where it tumbled further down before hooking its claws on the rim of the tutu. Alice saw this, and she desperately wiggled her tush in an effort to loosen her much smaller opponent. "Aaaaaargh! It's not working! Help me, you dopes!"

Jernigan ran to her aid. He tried to strike the beast with his hockey stick, but couldn't get a clear shot at it. He swung once, twice, thrice, and missed each time. "Y-you're moving too much!"

"Pathetic!" Alice boomed. "I'm sick of excuses. You aren't a man. You are a worm, Mr Jernigan!"

"This is irrational…."

"A weak, lowly worm!"

"I don't have to put up with this!"

"Then spare me the drivel and swing, damn you. Show no mercy!"

Thus, focusing all his strength and all his pent-up rage, Jernigan attacked.

Unfortunately, as he did, the rat put into action its own calculated offensive. Maneuvering towards Alice's rear-end, it lunged for the titanic globes and bit into a colossal buttock. "Oooh!" The besmirched belle jumped, grabbing her ass with both hands. Then, when gravity kicked in, she descended fast, her groin coming into direct contact with the upward curve of the unyielding hockey stick.

 _Thwaaaaack! *Crrrrrruuuuuuuuunchhhh!*_

Alice was literally fucked. It was her very first time. And she would never forget the atrocious experience. Not in a trillion-billion years. The blunt edge of the weapon pounded her pussy, obliterating the ill-fated orifice. Her folds rippled at the intrusion, and the thief bolted upright. Her pupils withdrew into her skull. The corners of her gaping maw spasmed, twitched, all herky-jerky, as snot trailed from her flared nostrils. Indeed, to say that the impact had robbed her of her dear virginity would be the grossest understatement. Her maidenhood was booted on a one-way trip to kingdom come. And the honeyed songs of paradise accompanied it. Long, drawn-out, and deafening.

"Giiiiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh – !"

[…]

"Excellent, Doris," Alex whispered from the shadows of the linen closet.

Hidden among the sacks and towels, he'd avoided detection from the trio of burglars. He observed them from his front row seat, suppressing a chuckle here and there. But, upon seeing his pet rat gnaw into Alice's bouncy badonk and upon hearing the ear-splitting shriek, the boy decided that he had to scurry on back to the attic. Anyway, Doris could take care of herself. She was smart. Vastly more intelligent than these low-lives at least.

Swiftly, he raced out of the closet then into the corridor. Unger lay stunned on the floor, and Alex tramped over the mercenary's stomach, temporarily incapacitating him. Jernigan noticed the kid too. The hacker threw his hockey stick at him like a javelin. However, Alex managed to duck under it. He made his way to the attic door, hurried inside, and locked it behind him. No time to lose, he thought.

Those bozos would catch up sooner or later.

So, after stuffing the Axus microchip into his pocket, he crawled into the dumbwaiter, pushed a button on its control panel, and shut the door. He descended to the basement. And, as he did, he could pick up the faint sound of a door being busted down, followed by footsteps far above him.

Once in the basement, Alex set to work again, arranging one last surprise. He found a box of tools, and – using a screwdriver from there – he detached the wooden floor-piece of the dumbwaiter. When that was complete, he switched off the interior lighting. He closed the door once more, then further secured it with nails and hammer, ensuring that no one would be able to pry it open without the proper implements. Afterwards, he took a toy robot from a trunk of old keepsakes and set it some feet away from the dumbwaiter's control panel. He wished this miniature instrument of doom good luck, activated it, and swelled with joy as the battery-operated automaton trudged forward, swaying its mechanical arms.

"Yikety-yikes," he beamed.

He wouldn't want to be the ignoramus who falls for this trap!


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Alice and company hobbled up to the attic in pursuit of their prey. The evil woman visibly winced with each step she took, feeling the throb in her battered crotch and the sting all over her seething ass and anals. The brat's blood wouldn't satisfy her. After murdering him, she planned to torch the house until nothing but cinders remained. Of course, the family would be next in line for the furnace. Though, she could settle that piece of business once she had the microchip and all the money it was worth at her disposal.

Such vile ideas preoccupied her. And, predictably, she failed to detect the tripwire at the top of the stairs.

 _Fwiiiip – Bomph!_

Then and there, a huge, well-laden sack dropped from the ceiling. It collided into the trio and unloaded its contents over them. Without warning, they found themselves steeped from head to toe in dust. And not just any ordinary dust at that. Emerging from the lingering cloud radius, they discovered that the accursed substance irritated their skins, compelled them all to scratch at their bodies like a bunch of baboons.

Alice fervently raked her rear-end. She snarled. "Itching powder!"

"Uh, no duh, captain obvious," Unger whined, scratching his scalp and armpit.

"Grrr…. Enough lip! Go spread out and search!"

Where did the kid run off to? The three stooges peered into every nook, every cranny. However, they simply couldn't find him. Instead, they found the scraps he'd left behind. A few cans of soda stood watch over an old couch and table. Potato chips were scattered across the floor. It looked as if they'd stumbled upon the hazy aftermath of a children's party. Yet, most outrageous of all was the makeshift video security system! The trio stared blankly a moment into the stack of television monitors before the realization hit: Alex had been filming them this entire time! Indeed, even here in the attic, they could see themselves in one of the screens, huddled together, the camera trained on their big, toasted butts. It was the perfect – albeit most unflattering – image to sum up this absurd and humiliating mission.

Earl Unger and Burton Jernigan seemed only mildly annoyed, though. The two men knew who really to blame for their present troubles.

By contrast, Alice was thoroughly, thoroughly pissed. So much so that she couldn't find the proper words to express her wrath. Nor was she able to look away from the stack of monitors. It was like taking a jog down memory lane, and each screen merely visited upon her the remembrance of how badly she'd fallen from grace. On one screen, she spied the deep imprint her body had made after she'd tumbled into the mud pit; on another, she saw the broken porch steps and the burnt out box of fireworks; then the gunge Jacuzzi; the bucket of honey in the kitchen; the sofa in the living room where she received her spanking; and much more. Overcome again with loathing and embarrassment, she yanked at her artificial curls and cursed. The boy's taunts returned to haunt her. _Blubber butt…. Naughty girl…. Stinker…._

"Hey! You're not gonna' find me up there, you big, dumb, law-breaking knuckleheads!"

And, Alice shuddered. That last one sounded too real to be a voice in her head.

She turned to her cohorts. Unger and Jernigan appeared just as surprised. Consequently, the three came to the same conclusion. "He's outside," they declared in unison.

At that instant, they dragged themselves towards the window, and beheld the most disheartening sight. Outside, the blizzard had swept across the neighborhood, burying everything in a great expanse of pure white snow, obscuring the rooftops, the alleyways, and even their get-away car. Yet, one small figure stood out from the backdrop, dressed as he was in a colorful winter coat. It was Alex!

The kid gazed back at the trio of criminals with a mischievous smile. Then, when he knew he had their attention, he opted to further tease them. Alex pulled out the Axus microchip, raised it up, then waved it as if holding a prized lottery ticket. "Looking for this, you losers?!"

Up in the attic, Alice was dumbfounded. She watched the boy show off the microchip, then watched him saunter out into the street. He didn't even bother to hurry away. And, this was the profoundest insult of all. It meant that he didn't consider her a threat anymore! It meant that he simply expected her to stand there, scratching her itchy bum! She punched the wall. It was the very last straw. This stunt only vindicated her intention to annihilate all evidence of the Pruitts' ever existing. She had to defend her faultless reputation, her image, her ego. And still, it dawned on her that she hadn't yet answered the most essential question – just how did he get down to the backyard so fast? By what means?! He couldn't have teleported down there! There must've been some kind of trick involved. "Aha! Gotcha!"

A trampoline below by the pool! She'd found him out. That's how he'd snuck out! The lady thief wasted no time informing her goons, and the two tired men seemed to shrink into their clothes.

"You want us to what?!" Jernigan cried, his countenance going pale.

"Jump. I want you both to jump," Alice said matter-of-factly.

"You're not serious," Unger griped.

Alice reassured them – not very convincingly. "If an infant can do it, you can too."

"Children are more flexible!" Jernigan yelped.

And without hesitation, Alice brandished her M16 assault rifle for dramatic effect. "It's a trampoline," she repeated coolly. "T-r-a-m-p-o-l-i-n-e. Must I spell it out for you twits?"

Clearly, Unger and Jernigan were cornered. They understood the implicit threat in the woman's gestures. So, steeling themselves, they decided it best to take a leap of faith than face the firing squad. A sense of finality gripped them. Had they known things would turn out this way, they'd have run away much earlier. They'd have followed Beaupre, or begged him to stay. Of course, he had the smarts to flee, seeing that Alice had become incorrigibly compromised, that – frankly – she'd gone nuts. Indeed, there was no mistaking the end. They could already feel it in their broken bones, feel it in the bruises on their bruises, and in the quaking in their knees.

They climbed out onto the frost-covered window sill.

"I presume that you won't be joining us," Unger snapped. His last act of petty rebellion.

"No! I'll cover you from up here," Alice responded. "Besides, someone has to destroy those tapes!"

That's right, the ex-beauty thought. She could never allow any degrading footage of herself to go public. It just wouldn't do. Especially for someone like her – the divine muse of larceny, the real-life Catwoman... She was far too absorbed in her own legend. The woman's vanity and cruelty remained unchanged.

Unger recognized this, and shot her a disgusted glare. "Go to hell," he barked.

Then, both the mercenary and the hacker jumped. They plunged downward, clenching their teeth, tensing their muscles, and readying their loins for the eventual rebound off of the trampoline.

It was to their misfortune, however, that the anticipated rebound never happened. The dread-filled duo didn't bounce off the surface. Rather, they burst right through it! The trampoline put up zero resistance, gave way. And, by the time they learned that it was nothing more than a decoy, Unger and Jernigan had crash landed into the icy swimming pool hidden underneath.

 _Splaaaaaaaaaaaaassssshhhhh!_

Both men were out of the game. The immense physical shock had shut down their motor skills and left them powerless to pull out. Ultimately, Unger and Jernigan could only float in the freezing water, feebly hugging their own bodies for warmth, wistfully regretting their bad decisions.

[…]

Alice stared down at her vanquished cohorts in disbelief. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and blinked again. From her vantage, it appeared as though Unger and Jernigan had been swallowed by a chasm in the earth, then dumped into a subterranean lake, their heads bobbing, arms threshing, helplessly splashing about. The kid had put them on ice. And soon, they'd be on their way to the cooler – a shameful conclusion to a shameful day. Of course, once the initial bewilderment had dissipated, the wicked woman couldn't help but curl her lips into a mocking smirk. She had to admit it. This startling development was... acceptable. Such a fate served them both right for their many insubordinations. Likewise, it spared her the actual trouble of eliminating those expendable fools herself.

Certainly, there was no point dwelling on lost causes now. Her prey was getting away, and Alice had no choice but to chase him on her own. The incriminating – humiliating! – tapes could wait. This couldn't.

Then, right on schedule, a noise from behind caught her attention. _Clunk!_

In shock, Alice wheeled around and assumed a defensive stance. Her curvaceous figure went rigid. Her cold blue eyes narrowed. But, as it were, the source of the sound soon became apparent. And, as this reality dawned on the lady thief, a glint flashed across her eyes. She loosened her guard, relaxed her body, feeling a rush of confidence wash all over her again. Indeed, a veritable fog seemed to lift, for confronting her now was the answer to her conundrums – the dumbwaiter! That's how the blasted boy did it! That's how he'd gotten down so quickly! "Hah! Sweet, sweet victory!" she proudly exclaimed.

And so, Alice limped towards the dumbwaiter and yanked open its door. Unsurprisingly, the space inside was dim and cramped. A tight fit for any adult. The villainess, however, could no longer be dissuaded by such trivialities. She cracked her knuckles, did a few stretches, and worked her aching neck. Afterwards, mustering up every last ounce of her renowned flexibility, she bent over and eased her gigantic rump into the yawning cavity. She fidgeted this way and that, squirming frantically until she was panting for breath. And yet, to her dismay, the opening resisted her labors and refused her entry. It was simply too small. Her oversized glutes couldn't possibly squeeze in.

Nevertheless, Alice didn't surrender. Growing purple with rage, she withdrew her shapely backside, then slammed it into the dumbwaiter once more to no effect. A sinister intensity seemed to possess her. The thief gritted her teeth. She wasn't done. And she renewed her hysterical efforts with heightened vigor. Again and again, she rammed those enormous ass cheeks as though trying to twerk the doorway into submission. Her rubber galoshes screeched under the strain, and the fervent rustling of her frilly pink tutu resounded throughout. Regardless, though, the obstacle wouldn't budge.

"Damn it! This isn't helping at all!" Alice growled as her breasts heaved in exhaustion and indignation. By now, she was so drenched in sweat that her cutesy wig was reduced to a sodden mess, and her even cutesier panties were soaked to transparency. Still, the femme fatale was no closer to capturing the kid. And, plainly, some sort of assistance was necessary, some sort of lubrication. She scanned the attic for anything that might be of use to her, but spotted only one item that suited her very special needs: a bottle of volcano hot sauce!

Alice grimaced. The sight caused her to recoil in bitter revulsion.

Still, she was losing precious progress. The unthinkable had to be done. Thus, she took a deep breath, grabbed the bottle, and unceremoniously emptied its contents onto her protruding posterior. With shaky hands, she then spread the liquid fire all across her bum. The consequences were almost immediate as the hot sauce reacted violently with the itching powder.

What resulted was a sweltering cocktail that aggravated a hundredfold the soreness in Alice's tush. And, inadvertently, some of it seeped like lava into the crack of her ass. The buxom bad girl chewed her lip.

She wasn't going to pass out. Not now. Not yet. She fought off the blistering sensation, struggled against the pain, and waddled back to the dumbwaiter. This was the decisive point, her final chance at redemption. Cautiously, Alice stuck out her glowing red butt, thrusting it towards the opening. She then wedged it in, and – miracle of miracles! – the massive pair of globes managed to slip right through! Soon, a huge surge of power filled her. The haughty woman grinned. And – to her mind – her buns, slick with the spicy lube, were unstoppable. Nothing could impede them, yet alone conquer them. Indeed, nothing more could go wrong today. Her unlucky streak had ended. She was utterly convinced of it. So, without hesitation, Alice kicked her feet off the ground, and pushed herself in deeper. "Here I come, you little brat!"

Of course, that last push was enough to seal her fate. The thief's cocky grin suddenly dissolved into a look of speechless terror, for something was terribly amiss. And she promptly apprehended what it was. The dumbwaiter no longer had a bottom! Her giant arse was sitting on air!

The hapless vixen gasped. She flailed her arms and legs in an attempt to wrench herself away. However, it was much too late. The lubricant she'd rubbed across her rear guaranteed a smooth descent, and Alice vanished into the shaft with a high-pitched scream. "Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!"

She fell, and she kept on falling, plummeting down that claustrophobic abyss. Darkness engulfed her. The light from the attic above dwindled until it was a mere glimmer in the far off distance. And, desperately, Alice clawed at the walls around her. She dug her nails into the moldy concrete, deep into the grime. Yet, nothing could slow her steep descent. The inevitable itself was fast approaching as her barreling booty gathered more and more speed, more and more momentum. All color left her face. Her bowels contracted. A warm stream trickled along her inner thighs. And her screams continued to echo in those confines. She continued to fall. Four stories all in all.

"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!" _Boooooooom!_

Then, crashing ass-first into the base of the dumbwaiter, Alice hit rock bottom.

Her screams abruptly ceased. The impact caused the ground to tremble, the walls to sway, and the roof to shiver. It was like a bomb being set off there in the basement. Cataclysmic. Subsequently, an uneasy stillness seemed to choke the neighborhood. Silence reigned. Though, surely, this was not to last.

A cacophony of creaks and groans soon began to rumble forth from the Pruitts' as fissures formed at the very foot of the house. It was a bad sign. The fissures gradually extended upwards, splitting the residence right down the middle, tearing its foundations asunder. In turn, chunks of plaster dropped from the ceiling. Support beams ruptured. Sewage pipes burst. Within a matter of seconds, the entire structure collapsed, folding in on itself in a grand display of deafening destruction. Gray clouds of smoke mushroomed out. The sky darkened. And, when the dust settled, the cozy abode was gone. Only ruins remained now – the ruins of a home, an ally, a former fortress….

Truly, the battle was over. The players were spent. Time was up.

"Ouch."

[…]

Upon arriving at the scene, the police were taken aback by the devastation before them. The house they expected to glimpse was demolished. The kid they expected to rescue didn't need any rescuing after all. And, to add to that, four of the world's most wanted criminals had just been neutralized. The cops didn't know what to make of it. It simply felt unreal. They scratched their heads, shrugged their shoulders, and chose to leave the investigation to the Feds. Whatever the case, a big clean-up awaited them.

Quickly, squadron after squadron dispersed, weaving through the debris, searching for the beaten rogues. It didn't take long for them to capture Unger and Jernigan. However, Alice proved more elusive. A whole half hour passed before the police discovered her bare legs jutting out of the rubble, plus another half hour before they successfully unearthed her.

The besmirched belle was, of course, in the worst shape of her life.

Having fallen four stories down a dumbwaiter shaft and having had a house literally cave-in on top of her, it was only natural that Alice had dislocated her ass and broken her butt. Moreover, her statuesque body was now scrunched up, locked into a permanent squatting position, as though forever tensing above an invisible toilet. Her arms dangled stiffly overhead. Her neck lolled at an odd angle such that her ears were level with her shoulders, her chin between her breasts. By all means, she looked like a bashed-up ballerina doll that'd been toyed with a tad too much. The thief couldn't move, couldn't feel anything, save for the supreme humiliation which accompanied her defeat. How was all this even possible?! She still couldn't believe it, couldn't understand it. In the short span of a week, everything she ever valued had been stolen. Her glamorous career! Her flawless reputation! Her elegant figure! Lost! Lost! Everything lost!

And, as the boys in blue carried her away, she wanted so badly to throw a hissy fit, to bite and scratch and murder her captors. Indeed, none of this seemed fair to her. The brat had cheated. Her goons had dragged her down. Such technicalities abounding, she just couldn't let things end this way. No! Not when she was meant to be the world's most infamous cat burglar! She demanded a do-over! A fresh start! And, already, the gymnastic maneuver for a daring escape arose clear in her mind. She needed only to execute it….

Unfortunately, though, her body ignored her commands, merely twitching instead.

Worse yet, a crowd of curious onlookers had gathered around the villainess, shoving their cellphones into her mud-splattered face, taking cheerful selfies, pointing fingers, laughing. The disgraced dame scowled. Her mouth contorted into a sour, defiant sneer. But, really, there was nothing else she could do. Robbed of her athleticism, her logic, and her feminine charms, Alice had become a living, breathing punch-line: the sorest loser of them all! As helpless as a newborn babe, and every bit as pathetic!

Then, as if to heap indignity upon indignity, the crowd eagerly parted, and in rushed a local news crew, HD camera on the roll. The crew snatched a fine close-up of the evil woman's mug. All the while, a lively reporter narrated the outcome of the heist, naming it "the flop of the century", "an epic fail".

Alice herself hadn't the strength to speak. She stared dumbly into the lens, unable to tear her gaze away, knowing deep down that her crippling defeat was being televised across the country. The camera lingered on her long enough to immortalize every delicious detail of her transformed self. Then, it shifted its focus elsewhere. The woman's eyes darted about in their sockets to follow, and she learnt what was going on – a waking nightmare! For there, to her side, stood the wretched brat, now in the midst of presenting the ten-million Dollar microchip to FBI Deputy Director Stuckey! The felonious femme shrieked, but only a choked gurgle emerged. She could have strangled the kid, could have snapped his neck. She yearned for it. But, alas, her body disobeyed her again. Likewise, another spurt of wetness gushed forth into the front of her Hello Kitty panties. And, she feared, something firm may have also popped out by the backseat.

The idea alone appalled her. Yet, thankfully, nobody had noticed.

For now, everyone busied themselves praising Alex Pruitt. The crowd cheered him on as a hero, a patriot. His mother embraced him. His siblings patted him on the shoulder. And, as the cops loaded Alice up into the back of their holding van, she could have sworn that she'd caught a glimpse of the kid, sticking out his tongue at her, waving goodbye.

It was a fitting send-off.


End file.
